[32] Venice was long remarkable for her encouragement of skill in living languages. It was a necessary qualification for most of her diplomatic appointments; and, while Latin, in Europe, was still the ordinary medium of diplomatic intercourse, we find a Venetian ambassador to England, in 1509, Badoer, capable of conversing like a native in English, French, and German.—See an interesting paper, “Venetian Dispatches,” in the Quarterly Review, vol. xcvi. p. 369.
[33] M’Crie’s Reformation in Spain, I. p. 61. See also Hallam’s Literary History, I. p. 197.
[34] See the Bibliotheca Hispana, vol. I. pref. p. vii.
[35] See Hefele’s Der Cardinal Ximenes: one of the most interesting and learned biographies with which I am acquainted, p. 124.
[36] Vol. II., p. 788.
[37] Naima’s Annals of the Turkish Empire, translated by M. Frazer, for the Oriental Translation Society. For this fact I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Watts, of the British Museum, but I am unable to refer to the passage.
[38] Pilgrimage to El Medinah, II. p. 368.
[39] Ibid. I., p. 179.
[40] Burton’s Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah. III., 368.
[41] Annals of the Turkish Empire, p. 45.