The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume II Part 13

who, while amba.s.sador at Rome, induced Martyr to visit Spain, and who was grandson of the famous marquis of Santillana, and nephew of the grand cardinal. [20] This ill.u.s.trious family, rendered yet more ill.u.s.trious by its merits than its birth, is worthy of specification, as affording altogether the most remarkable combination of literary talent in the enlightened court of Castile. The queen's instructor in the Latin language was a lady named Dona Beatriz de Galindo, called from her peculiar attainments _la Latina_. Another lady, Dona Lucia de Medrano, publicly lectured on the Latin cla.s.sics in the university of Salamanca. And another, Dona Francisca de Lebrija, daughter of the historian of that name, filled the chair of rhetoric with applause at Alcala. But our limits will not allow a further enumeration of names, which should never be permitted to sink into oblivion, were it only for the rare scholars.h.i.+p, peculiarly rare in the female s.e.x, which they displayed, in an age comparatively unenlightened. [21] Female education in that day embraced a wider compa.s.s of erudition, in reference to the ancient languages, than is common at present; a circ.u.mstance attributable, probably, to the poverty of modern literature at that time, and the new and general appet.i.te excited by the revival of cla.s.sical learning in Italy. I am not aware, however, that it was usual for learned ladies, in any other country than Spain, to take part in the public exercises of the gymnasium, and deliver lectures from the chairs of the universities. This peculiarity, which may be referred in part to the queen's influence, who encouraged the love of study by her own example, as well as by personal attendance on the academic examinations, may have been also suggested by a similar usage, already noticed, among the Spanish Arabs. [22]

While the study of the ancient tongues came thus into fas.h.i.+on with persons of both s.e.xes, and of the highest rank, it was widely and most thoroughly cultivated by professed scholars. Men of letters, some of whom have been already noticed, were invited into Spain from Italy, the theatre, at that time, on which, from obvious local advantages, cla.s.sical discovery was pursued with greatest ardor and success. To this country it was usual also for Spanish students to repair, in order to complete their discipline in cla.s.sical literature, especially the Greek, as first taught on sound principles of criticism, by the learned exiles from Constantinople. The most remarkable of the Spanish scholars, who made this literary pilgrimage to Italy, was Antonio de Lebrija, or Nebrissensis, as he is more frequently called from his Latin name. [23] After ten years pa.s.sed at Bologna and other seminaries of repute, with particular attention to their interior discipline, he returned, in 1473, to his native land, richly laden with the stores of various erudition. He was invited to fill the Latin chair at Seville, whence he was successively transferred to Salamanca and Alcala, both of which places he long continued to enlighten by his oral instruction and publications. The earliest of these was his _Introducciones Latinas_, the third edition of which was printed in 1485, being four years only from the date of the first; a remarkable evidence of the growing taste for cla.s.sical learning. A translation in the vernacular accompanied the last edition, arranged, at the queen's suggestion, in columns parallel with those of the original text; a form which, since become common, was then a novelty. [24] The publication of his Castilian grammar, "_Grammatica Castillana_," followed in 1492; a treatise designed particularly for the instruction of the ladies of the court. The other productions of this indefatigable scholar embrace a large circle of topics, independently of his various treatises on philology and criticism. Some were translated into French and Italian, and their republication has been continued to the last century. No man of his own, or of later times, contributed more essentially than Lebrija to the introduction of a pure and healthful erudition into Spain. It is not too much to say, that there was scarcely an eminent Spanish scholar in the beginning of the sixteenth century, who had not formed himself on the instructions of this master. [25]

Another name worthy of commemoration, is that of Arias Barbosa, a learned Portuguese, who, after pa.s.sing some years, like Lebrija, in the schools of Italy, where he studied the ancient tongues under the guidance of Politiano, was induced to establish his residence in Spain. In 1489, we find him at Salamanca, where he continued for twenty, or, according to some accounts, forty years, teaching in the departments of Greek and rhetoric. At the close of that period he returned to Portugal, where he superintended the education of some of the members of the royal family, and survived to a good old age. Barbosa was esteemed inferior to Lebrija in extent of various erudition, but to have surpa.s.sed him in an accurate knowledge of the Greek and poetical criticism. In the former, indeed, he seems to have obtained a greater repute than any Spanish scholar of the time. He composed some valuable works, especially on ancient prosody. The unwearied a.s.siduity and complete success of his academic labors have secured to him a high reputation among the restorers of ancient learning, and especially that of reviving a livelier relish for the study of the Greek, by conducting it on principles of pure criticism, in the same manner as Lebrija did with the Latin. [26]

The scope of the present work precludes the possibility of a copious enumeration of the pioneers of ancient learning, to whom Spain owes so large a debt of grat.i.tude. [27]

The Castilian scholars of the close of the fifteenth, and the beginning of the sixteenth century, may take rank with their ill.u.s.trious contemporaries of Italy. They could not indeed achieve such brilliant results in the discovery of the remains of antiquity, for such remains had been long scattered and lost amid the centuries of exile and disastrous warfare consequent on the Saracen invasion. But they were unwearied in their ill.u.s.trations, both oral and written, of the ancient authors; and their numerous commentaries, translations, dictionaries, grammars, and various works of criticism, many of which, though now obsolete, pa.s.sed into repeated editions in their own day, bear ample testimony to the generous zeal with which they conspired to raise their contemporaries to a proper level for contemplating the works of the great masters of antiquity; and well ent.i.tled them to the high eulogium of Erasmus, that "liberal studies were brought, in the course of a few years, in Spain to so flouris.h.i.+ng a condition, as might not only excite the admiration, but serve as a model to the most cultivated nations of Europe." [28]

The Spanish universities were the theatre on which this cla.s.sical erudition was more especially displayed. Previous to Isabella's reign, there were but few schools in the kingdom; not one indeed of any note, except in Salamanca; and this did not escape the blight which fell on every generous study. But under the cheering patronage of the present government, they were soon filled, and widely multiplied. Academies of repute were to be found in Seville, Toledo, Salamanca, Granada, and Alcala; and learned teachers were drawn from abroad by the most liberal emoluments. At the head of these establishments stood "the ill.u.s.trious city of Salamanca," as Marineo fondly terms it, "mother of all liberal arts and virtues, alike renowned for n.o.ble cavaliers and learned men."

[29] Such was its reputation, that foreigners as well as natives were attracted to its schools, and at one time, according to the authority of the same professor, seven thousand students were a.s.sembled within its walls. A letter of Peter Martyr, to his patron the count of Tendilla, gives a whimsical picture of the literary enthusiasm of this place. The throng was so great to hear his introductory lecture on one of the Satires of Juvenal, that every avenue to the hall was blockaded, and the professor was borne in on the shoulders of the students. Professors.h.i.+ps in every department of science then studied, as well as of polite letters, were established at the university, the "new Athens," as Martyr somewhere styles it. Before the close of Isabella's reign, however, its glories were rivalled, if not eclipsed, by those of Alcala; [30] which combined higher advantages for ecclesiastical with civil education, and which, under the splendid patronage of Cardinal Ximenes, executed the famous polyglot version of the Scriptures, the most stupendous literary enterprise of that age. [31]

This active cultivation was not confined to the dead languages, but spread more or less over every department of knowledge. Theological science, in particular, received a large share of attention. It had always formed a princ.i.p.al object of academic instruction, though suffered to languish under the universal corruption of the preceding reign. It was so common for the clergy to be ignorant of the most elementary knowledge, that the council of Aranda found it necessary to pa.s.s an ordinance, the year before Isabella's accession, that no person should be admitted to orders who was ignorant of Latin. The queen took the most effectual means for correcting this abuse, by raising only competent persons to ecclesiastical dignities.

The highest stations in the church were reserved for those who combined the highest intellectual endowments with unblemished piety. Cardinal Mendoza, whose acute and comprehensive mind entered with interest into every scheme for the promotion of science, was archbishop of Toledo; Talavera, whose hospitable mansion was itself an academy for men of letters, and whose princely revenues were liberally dispensed for their support, was raised to the see of Granada; and Ximenes, whose splendid literary projects will require more particular notice hereafter, succeeded Mendoza in the primacy of Spain. Under the protection of these enlightened patrons, theological studies were pursued with ardor, the Scriptures copiously ill.u.s.trated, and sacred eloquence cultivated with success.

A similar impulse was felt in the other walks of science. Jurisprudence a.s.sumed a new aspect, under the learned labors of Montalvo. [32] The mathematics formed a princ.i.p.al branch of education, and were successfully applied to astronomy and geography. Valuable treatises were produced on medicine, and on the more familiar practical arts, as husbandry, for example. [33] History, which since the time of Alfonso the Tenth had been held in higher honor and more widely Cultivated in Castile than in any other European state, began to lay aside the garb of chronicle, and to be studied on more scientific principles. Charters and diplomas were consulted, ma.n.u.scripts collated, coins and lapidary inscriptions deciphered, and collections made of these materials, the true basis of authentic history; and an office of public archives, like that now existing at Simancas, was established at Burgos, and placed under the care of Alonso de Mota, as keeper, with a liberal salary. [34]

Nothing could have been more opportune for the enlightened purposes of Isabella, than the introduction of the art of printing into Spain, at the commencement, indeed in the very first year, of her reign. She saw, from the first moment, all the advantages which it promised for diffusing and perpetuating the discoveries of science. She encouraged its establishment by large privileges to those who exercised it, whether natives or foreigners, and by causing many of the works, composed by her subjects, to be printed at her own charge. [35]

Among the earlier printers we frequently find the names of Germans; a people, who to the original merits of the discovery may justly add that of its propagation among every nation of Europe. We meet with a _pragmatica_, or royal ordinance, dated in 1477, exempting a German, named Theodoric, from taxation, on the ground of being "one of the princ.i.p.al persons in the discovery and practice of the art of printing books, which he had brought with him into Spain at great risk and expense, with the design of enn.o.bling the libraries of the kingdom." [36]

Monopolies for printing and selling books for a limited period, answering to the modern copyright, were granted to certain persons, in consideration of their doing so at a reasonable rate. [37] It seems to have been usual for the printers to be also the publishers and venders of books. These exclusive privileges, however, do not appear to have been carried to a mischievous extent. Foreign books, of every description, by a law of 1480, were allowed to be imported into the kingdom, free of all duty whatever; an enlightened provision, which might furnish a useful hint to legislators of the nineteenth century. [38]

The first press appears to have been erected at Valencia, in 1474; although the glory of precedence is stoutly contested by several places, and especially by Barcelona. [39] The first work printed was a collection of songs, composed for a poetical contest in honor of the Virgin, for the most part in the Limousin or Valencian dialect. [40] In the following year the first ancient cla.s.sic, being the works of Sall.u.s.t, was printed; and, in 1478, there appeared from the same press a translation of the Scriptures, in the Limousin, by Father Boniface Ferrer, brother of the famous Dominican, St. Vincent Ferrer. [41] Through the liberal patronage of the government, the art was widely diffused; and before the end of the fifteenth century, presses were established and in active operation in the princ.i.p.al cities of the united kingdom; in Toledo, Seville, Ciudad Real, Granada, Valladolid, Burgos, Salamanca, Zamora, Saragossa, Valencia, Barcelona, Monte Rey, Lerida, Murcia, Tolosa, Tarragona, Alcala de Henares, and Madrid.

It is painful to notice amidst the judicious provisions for the encouragement of science, one so entirely repugnant to their spirit as the establishment of the censors.h.i.+p. By an ordinance, dated at Toledo, July 8th, 1502, it was decreed, that, "as many of the books sold in the kingdom were defective, or false, or apocryphal, or pregnant with vain and superst.i.tious novelties, it was therefore ordered that no book should hereafter be printed without special license from the king, or some person regularly commissioned by him for the purpose." The names of the commissioners then follow, consisting mostly of ecclesiastics, archbishops and bishops, with authority respectively over their several dioceses. [42]

This authority was devolved in later times, under Charles the Fifth and his successors, on the Council of the Supreme, over which the inquisitor- general presided _ex-officio_. The immediate agents employed in the examination were also drawn from the Inquisition, who exercised this important trust, as is well known, in a manner most fatal to the interests of letters and humanity. Thus a provision, destined in its origin for the advancement of science, by purifying it from the crudities and corruptions which naturally infect it in a primitive age, contributed more effectually to its discouragement, than any other which could have been devised, by interdicting the freedom of expression, so indispensable to freedom of inquiry. [43]

While endeavoring to do justice to the progress of civilization in this reign, I should regret to present to the reader an over-colored picture of its results. Indeed, less emphasis should be laid on any actual results, than on the spirit of improvement, which they imply in the nation, and the liberal dispositions of the government. The fifteenth century was distinguished by a zeal for research and laborious acquisition, especially in ancient literature, throughout Europe, which showed itself in Italy in the beginning of the age, and in Spain, and some other countries, towards the close. It was natural that men should explore the long-buried treasures descended from their ancestors, before venturing on anything of their own creation. Their efforts were eminently successful; and, by opening an acquaintance with the immortal productions of ancient literature, they laid the best foundation for the cultivation of the modern.

In the sciences, their success was more equivocal. A blind reverence for authority, a habit of speculation, instead of experiment, so pernicious in physics, in short, an ignorance of the true principles of philosophy, often led the scholars of that day in a wrong direction. Even when they took a right one, their attainments, under all these impediments, were necessarily so small, as to be scarcely perceptible, when viewed from the brilliant heights to which science has arrived in our own age.

Unfortunately for Spain, its subsequent advancement has been so r.e.t.a.r.ded, that a comparison of the fifteenth century with those which succeeded it, is by no means so humiliating to the former as in some other countries of Europe; and, it is certain, that in general intellectual fermentation, no period has surpa.s.sed, if it can be said to have rivalled, the age of Isabella.

FOOTNOTES

[1] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 153.

[2] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 154, 182.

[3] Carro de las Donas, lib. 2, cap. 62 et seq., apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 21.--Pulgar, Letras, (Amstelodami, 1670,) let. 11.

--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 182.--It is sufficient evidence of her familiarity with the Latin, that the letters addressed to her by her confessor seem to have been written in that language and the Castilian indifferently, exhibiting occasionally a curious patchwork in the alternate use of each in the same epistle. See Correspondencia Epistolar, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 13.

[4] Previous to the introduction of printing, collections of books were necessarily very small and thinly scattered, owing to the extreme cost of ma.n.u.scripts. The learned Saez has collected some curious particulars relative to this matter. The most copious library which he could find any account of, in the middle of the fifteenth century, was owned by the counts of Benavente, and contained not more than one hundred and twenty volumes. Many of these were duplicates; of Livy alone there were eight copies. The cathedral churches in Spain rented their books every year by auction to the highest bidders, whence they derived a considerable revenue.

It would appear from a copy of Gratian's Canons, preserved in the Celestine monastery in Paris, that the copyist was engaged twenty-one months in transcribing that ma.n.u.script. At this rate, the production of four thousand copies by one hand would require nearly eight thousand years, a work now easily performed in less than four months. Such was the tardiness in multiplying copies before the invention of printing. Two thousand volumes may be procured now at a price, which in those days would hardly have sufficed to purchase fifty. See Tratado de Monedas de Enrique III., apud Moratin, Obras, ed. de la Acad., (Madrid, 1830,) tom. i. pp.

91, 92. Moratin argues from extreme cases.

[5] Navagiero, Viaggio fatto in Spagna et in Francia, (Vinegia, 1563,) fol. 23.--Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t, 17. The largest collection comprised about two hundred and one articles, or distinct works. Of these, about a third is taken up with theology, comprehending Bibles, psalters, missals, lives of saints, and works of the fathers; one- fifth, civil law and the munic.i.p.al code of Spain; one-fourth, ancient cla.s.sics, modern literature, and romances of chivalry; one-tenth, history; the residue is devoted to ethics, medicine, grammar, astrology, etc. The only Italian author, besides Leonardo Bruno d'Arezzo, is Boccaccio. The works of the latter writer consisted of the "Fiammetta," the treatises "De Casibus Ill.u.s.trium Virorum," and "De Claris Mulieribus," and probably the "Decameron;" the first in the Italian, and the three last translated into the Spanish. It is singular, that neither of Boccaccio's great contemporaries, Dante and Petrarch, the former of whom had been translated by Villena, and imitated by Juan de Mena, half a century before, should have found a place in the collection.

[6] Antonio, the eldest, died in 1488. Part of his Latin poetical works, ent.i.tled "Sacred Bucolics," was printed in 1505, at Salamanca. The younger brother, Alessandro, after bearing arms in the Portuguese war, was subsequently employed in the instruction of the infantas, finally embraced the ecclesiastical state, and died bishop of St. Domingo, in 1525. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 16.--Tiraboschi, Letteratura Italiana, tom. vi. part. 2, p. 285.

[7] The learned Valencian, Luis Vives, in his treatise "De Christiana Femina," remarks, "Aetas noster quatuor illas Isabellae reginae filias, quas paullo ante memoravi, eruditas vidit. Non sine laudibus et admiratione refertur mihi pa.s.sim in hae terra Joannam, Philippi conjugem, Caroli hujus matrem, extempore latinis orationibus, quae de more apud novos principes oppidatim habentur, latine respondisse. Idem de regina sua, Joannae sorore, Britanni praedicant; idem omnes de duabus aliis, quae in Lusitania fato concessere." (De Christiana Femina, cap. 4, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 16.)--It appears, however, that Isabella was not inattentive to the more humble accomplishments, in the education of her daughters. "Regina," says the same author, "nere, suere, acu pingere quatuor filias auas doctas esse voluit." Another contemporary, the author of the Carro de las Donas, (lib. 2, cap. 62, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Il.u.s.t. 21,) says, "she educated her son and daughters, giving them masters of life and letters, and surrounding them with such persons as tended to make them vessels of election, and kings in Heaven."

Erasmus notices the literary attainments of the youngest daughter of the sovereigns, the unfortunate Catharine of Aragon, with unqualified admiration. In one of his letters, he styles her "egregie doctam;" and in another he remarks, "Regina non tantum in s.e.xus miraculum literata est; nec minus pietate suspicienda, quam eruditione." Epistolae, (Londini, 1642,) lib. 19, epist. 31; lib. 2, epist. 24.

[8] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Deza.--Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 14.

[9] Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 14.

Juan de la Eucina, in the dedication to the prince, of his translation of Virgil's Bucolics, pays the following compliment to the enlightened and liberal taste of Prince John. "Favoresceis tanto la sciencia andando acompanado de tantos e tan doctisimos varones, que no menos dejareis perdurable memoria de haber alargado e estendido los limites e terminos de la sciencia que los del imperio." The extraordinary promise of this young prince made his name known in distant parts of Europe, and his untimely death, which occurred in the twentieth year of his age, was commemorated by an epitaph of the learned Greek exile, Constantine Lascaris.

[10] "Aficionados a la guerra," says Oviedo, speaking of some young n.o.bles of his time, "_por su Espanola y natural inclinacion_." Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 36.

[11] For some account of this eminent Italian scholar, see the postscript to Part I. Chap. 14, of this History.

[12] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 102, 103.

Lucio Marineo, in a discourse addressed to Charles V., thus notices the queen's solicitude for the instruction of her young n.o.bility. "Isabella praesertim Regina magnanima, virtutum omnium maxima cultrix. Quae quidem multis et magnis occupata negotiis, ut aliis exemplum praeberet, a primis grammaticae rudimentis studere coepit, et omnes suae domus adolescentes utriusque s.e.xus n.o.bilium liberos, praeceptoribus liberaliter et honorifice conductis erudiendos commendabat." Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi.

Apend. 16.--See also Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial.

36.

[13] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 115.

[14] A particular account of Marineo's writings may be found in Nic.

Antonio. (Bibliotheca Nova, tom. ii. Apend. p. 369.) The most important of these is his work "De Rebus Hispaniae Memorabilibus," often cited, in the Castilian, in this History. It is a rich repository of details respecting the geography, statistics, and manners of the Peninsula, with a copious historical notice of events in Ferdinand and Isabella's reign. The author's insatiable curiosity, during a long residence in the country, enabled him to collect many facts, of a kind that do not fall within the ordinary compa.s.s of history; while his extensive learning, and his familiarity with foreign models, peculiarly qualified him for estimating the inst.i.tutions he describes. It must be confessed he is sufficiently partial to the land of his adoption. The edition, referred to in this work, is in black letter, printed before, or soon after, the author's death (the date of which is uncertain), in 1539, at Alcala de Henares, by Juan Brocar, one of a family long celebrated in the annals of Castilian printing. Marineo's prologue concludes with the following n.o.ble tribute to letters. "Porque todos los otros bienes son subjectos a la fortuna y mudables y en poco tiempo mudan muchos duenos pa.s.sando de unos senores en otros, mas los dones de letras y hystorias que se ofrescen para perpetuidad de memoria y fama son immortales y prorogan y guardan para siempre la memoria a.s.si de los que los reciben, como de los que los ofrescen."

[15] Sepulveda, Democrites, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi.

Il.u.s.t. 16.--Signorelli, Coltura nelle Sicilie, tom. iv. p. 318.-- Tiraboschi, Letteratura Italiana, tom. vii. part. 3, lib. 3, cap. 4.-- Comp. Lampillas, Saggio Storico-Apologetico de la Letteratura Spagnuola, (Genova, 1778,) tom. ii. dis. 2, sect. 5.--The patriotic Abate is greatly scandalized by the degree of influence which Tiraboschi and other Italian critics ascribe to their own language over the Castilian, especially at this period. The seven volumes, in which he has discharged his bile on the heads of the offenders, afford valuable materials for the historian of Spanish literature. Tiraboschi must be admitted to have the better of his antagonist in temper, if not in argument.

[16] Among these we find copious translations from the ancient cla.s.sics, as Caesar, Appian, Plutarch, Plautus, Sall.u.s.t, Aesop, Justin, Boethius, Apulius, Herodian, affording strong evidence of the activity of the Castilian scholars in this department. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi.

pp. 406, 407.--Mendez, Typographia Espanola, pp. 133, 139.

[17] Salazar de Mendoza, Dignidades, cap. 21.

Lucio Marineo Siculo, in his discourse above alluded to, in which he exhibits the condition of letters under the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, enumerates the names of the n.o.bility most conspicuous for their scholars.h.i.+p. This valuable doc.u.ment was to be found only in the edition of Marineo's work, "De Rebus Hispaniae Memorabilibus," printed at Alcala, in 1630, whence it has been transferred by Clemencin to the sixth volume of the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of History.

[18] His work "Guerra de Granada," was first published at Madrid, in 1610, and "may be compared," says Nic. Antonio, in a judgment which has been ratified by the general consent of his countrymen, "with the compositions of Sall.u.s.t, or any other ancient historian." His poetry and his celebrated _picaresco_ novel "Lazarillo de Tormes," have made an epoch in the ornamental literature of Spain.

[19] Oviedo has devoted one of his dialogues to this n.o.bleman, equally distinguished by his successes in arms, letters, and love; the last of which, according to that writer, he had not entirely resigned at the age of seventy.--Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 28.

[20] For an account of Santillana, see the First Chapter of this History.

The cardinal, in early life, is said to have translated for his father the Aeneid, the Odyssey, Ovid, Valerius Maximus, and Sall.u.s.t. (Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 16.) This Herculean feat would put modern school-boys to shame, and we may suppose that partial versions only of these authors are intended.

[21] Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 16.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Grizio.

Senor Clemencin has examined with much care the intellectual culture of the nation under Isabella, in the sixteenth _Il.u.s.tracion_ of his work. He has touched lightly on its poetical character, considering, no doubt, that this had been sufficiently developed by other critics. His essay, however, is rich in information in regard to the scholars.h.i.+p and severer studies of the period. The reader, who would pursue the inquiry still further, may find abundant materials in Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Vetus, tom. ii. lib.

10, cap. 13 et seq.--Idem, Bibliotheca Hispana Nova, (Matriti, 1783-8,) tom. i. ii. pa.s.sim.

[22] See Part I. Chap. 8, of this History.