A further imitation, but not a proper continuation, under the name of “The Lazarillo of the Manzanares,” in which the state of society at Madrid is satirized, was attempted by Juan Cortés de Tolosa, and was first printed in 1620. But it produced no effect at the time, and has been long forgotten. Nor was a much better fate reserved for yet another Second Part of the genuine Lazarillo, which was written by Juan de Luna, a teacher of Spanish at Paris, and appeared there the same year the Lazarillo de Manzanares appeared at Madrid. It is, however, more in the spirit of the original work. It exhibits Lazarillo again as a servant to different kinds of masters, and as gentleman-usher of a poor, proud lady of rank; after which he retires from the world, and, becoming a religious recluse, writes this account of himself, which, though not equal to the free and vigorous sketches of the work it professes to complete, is by no means without value, especially for its style.[809]
The author of the Lazarillo de Tórmes, who, we are told, took the “Amadis” and the “Celestina” for his travelling companions and by-reading,[810] was, as we have intimated, not a person to devote himself to the Church; and we soon hear of him serving as a soldier in the great Spanish armies in Italy; a circumstance to which, in his old age, he alludes with evident pride and pleasure. At those seasons, however, when the troops were unoccupied, we know that he gladly listened to the lectures of the famous professors of Bologna, Padua, and Rome, and added largely to his already large stores of elegant knowledge.
A character so strongly marked would naturally attract the notice of a monarch, vigilant and clear-sighted, like Charles the Fifth; and as early as 1538, Mendoza was made his ambassador to the republic of Venice, then one of the leading powers of Europe. But there, too, though much busied with grave negotiations, he loved to be familiar with men of letters. The Aldi were then at the height of their reputation, and he assisted and patronized them. Paulus Manutius dedicated to him an edition of the philosophical works of Cicero, acknowledging his skill as a critic and praising his Latinity, though, at the same time, he says that Mendoza rather exhorted the young to study philosophy and science in their native languages;—a proof of liberality rare in an age when the admiration for the ancients led a great number of classical scholars to treat whatever was modern and vernacular with contempt. At one period, he gave himself up to the pursuit of Greek and Latin literature with a zeal such as Petrarch had shown long before him. He sent to Thessaly and the famous convent of Mount Athos, to collect Greek manuscripts. Josephus was first printed complete from his library, and so were some of the Fathers of the Church. And when, on one occasion, he had done so great a favor to the Sultan Soliman that he was invited to demand any return from that monarch’s gratitude, the only reward he would consent to receive for himself was a present of some Greek manuscripts, which, as he said, amply repaid all his services.
But, in the midst of studies so well suited to his taste and character, the Emperor called him away to more important duties. He was made military governor of Siena, and required to hold both the Pope and the Florentines in check; a duty which he fulfilled, though not without peril to his life. Somewhat later he was sent to the great Council of Trent, known as a political no less than an ecclesiastical congress, in order to sustain the Imperial interests there, and succeeded, by the exercise of a degree of firmness, address, and eloquence which would alone have made him one of the most considerable persons in the Spanish monarchy. While at the Council, however, in consequence of the urgency of affairs, he was despatched, as a special Imperial plenipotentiary to Rome, in 1547, for the bold purpose of confronting and overawing the Pope in his own capital. And in this, too, he succeeded; rebuking Julius the Third in open council, and so establishing his own consideration, as well as that of his country, that for six years afterwards he is to be looked upon as the head of the Imperial party throughout Italy, and almost as a viceroy governing that country, or a large part of it, for the Emperor, by his talents and firmness. But at last he grew weary of this great labor and burden; and the Emperor himself having changed his system and determined to conciliate Europe before he should abdicate, Mendoza returned to Spain in 1554.[811]
The next year, Philip the Second ascended the throne. His policy, however, little resembled that of his father, and Mendoza was not one of those who were well suited to the changed state of things. In consequence of this, he seldom came to court, and was not at all favored by the severe master who now ruled him, as he ruled all the other great men of his kingdom, with a hard and anxious tyranny.[812] One instance of his displeasure against Mendoza, and of the harsh treatment that followed it, is sufficiently remarkable. The ambassador, who, though sixty-four years of age when the event occurred, had lost little of the fire of his youth, fell into a passionate dispute with a courtier in the palace itself. The latter drew a dagger, and Mendoza wrested it from him and threw it out of the balcony where they were standing;—some accounts adding, that he afterwards threw out the courtier himself. Such a quarrel would certainly be accounted an affront to the royal dignity anywhere; but in the eyes of the formal and strict Philip the Second it was all but a mortal offence. He chose to have Mendoza regarded as a madman, and as such exiled him from his court;—an injustice against which the old man struggled in vain for some time, and then yielded himself up to it with loyal dignity.
His amusement during some portion of his exile was—singular as it may seem in one so old—to write poetry.[813] But the occupation had long been familiar to him. In the first edition of the works of Boscan we have an epistle from Mendoza to that poet, evidently written when he was young; besides which, several of his shorter pieces contain internal proof that they were composed in Italy. But, notwithstanding he had been so long in Venice and Rome, and notwithstanding Boscan must have been among his earliest friends, he does not belong entirely to the Italian school of poetry; for, though he has often imitated and fully sanctioned the Italian measures, he often gave himself up to the old redondillas and quintillas, and to the national tone of feeling and reflection appropriate to these ancient forms of Castilian verse.[814]
The truth is, Mendoza had studied the ancients with a zeal and success that had so far imbued his mind with their character and temper, as in some measure to keep out all undue modern influences. The first part of the Epistle to Boscan, already alluded to, though written in flowing terza rima, sounds almost like a translation of the Epistle of Horace to Numicius, and yet it is not even a servile imitation; while the latter part is absolutely Spanish, and gives such a description of domestic life as never entered the imagination of antiquity.[815] The Hymn in honor of Cardinal Espinosa, one of the most finished of his poems, is said to have been written after five days’ constant reading of Pindar, but is nevertheless full of the old Castilian spirit;[816] and his second cancion, though quite in the Italian measure, shows the turns of Horace more than of Petrarch.[817] Still, it is not to be concealed that Mendoza gave the decisive influence of his example to the new forms introduced by Boscan and Garcilasso;—a fact plain from the manner in which that example is appealed to by many of the poets of his time, and especially by Gregorio Silvestre and Christóval de Mesa.[818] In both styles, however, he succeeded. There is, perhaps, more richness of thought in the specimens he has given us in the Italian measures than in the others; yet it can hardly be doubted that his heart was in what he wrote upon the old popular foundations. Some of his letrillas, as they would now be called, though they bore different names in his time, are quite charming;[819] and in many parts of the second division of his poems, which is larger than that devoted to the Italian measures, there is a light and idle humor, well fitted to his subjects, and such as might have been anticipated from the author of the “Lazarillo” rather than from the Imperial representative at the Council of Trent and the Papal court. Indeed, some of his verses were so free, that it was thought inexpedient to print them.
The same spirit is apparent in two prose letters, or rather essays thrown into the shape of letters. The first professes to come from a person seeking employment at court, and gives an account of the whole class of Catariberas, or low courtiers, who, in soiled clothes and with base, fawning manners, daily besieged the doors and walks of the President of the Council of Castile, in order to solicit some one of the multitudinous humble offices in his gift. The other is addressed to Pedro de Salazar, ridiculing a book he had published on the wars of the Emperor in Germany, in which, as Mendoza declares, the author took more credit to himself personally than he deserved. Both are written with idiomatic humor, and a native buoyancy and gayety of spirit which seem to have lain at the bottom of his character, and to have broken forth, from time to time, during his whole life, notwithstanding the severe employments which for so many years filled and burdened his thoughts.[820]
The tendency of his mind, however, as he grew old, was naturally to graver subjects; and finding there was no hope of his being recalled to court, he established himself in unambitious retirement at Granada, his native city. But his spirit was not one that would easily sink into inactivity; and if it had been, he had not chosen a home that would encourage such a disposition. For it was a spot, not only full of romantic recollections, but intimately associated with the glory of his own family,—one where he had spent much of his youth, and become familiar with those remains and ruins of the Moorish power which bore witness to days when the plain of Granada was the seat of one of the most luxurious and splendid of the Mohammedan dynasties. Here, therefore, he naturally turned to the early studies of his half-Arabian education, and, arranging his library of curious Moorish manuscripts, devoted himself to the literature and history of his native city, until, at last, apparently from want of other occupation, he determined to write a part of its annals.
The portion he chose was one very recent; that of the rebellion raised by the Moors in 1568-1570, when they were no longer able to endure the oppression of Philip the Second; and it is much to Mendoza’s honor, that, with sympathies entirely Spanish, he has yet done the hated enemies of his faith and people such generous justice, that his book could not be published till many years after his own death,—not, indeed, till the unhappy Moors themselves had been finally expelled from Spain. His means for writing such a work were remarkable. His father, as we have noticed, had been a general in the conquering army of 1492, to which the story of this rebellion necessarily often recurs, and had afterward been governor of Granada. One of his nephews had commanded the troops in this very war. And now, after peace was restored by the submission of the rebels, the old statesman, as he stood amidst the trophies and ruins of the conflict, soon learned from eyewitnesses and partisans whatever of interest had happened on either side that he had not himself seen. Familiar, therefore, with every thing of which he speaks, there is a freshness and power in his sketches that carry us at once into the midst of the scenes and events he describes, and make us sympathize in details too minute to be always interesting, if they were not always marked with the impress of a living reality.[821]