The eldest among the prominent writers produced by this state of things was Francisco de Villalobos, of whom we know little, except that he belonged to a family which, for several successive generations, had been devoted to the medical art; that he was himself the physician, first of Ferdinand the Catholic,[835] and then of Charles the Fifth; that he published, as early as 1498, a poem on his own science, in five hundred stanzas, founded on the rules of Avicenna;[836] and that he continued to be known as an author, chiefly on subjects connected with his profession, till 1543, before which time he had become weary of the court, and sought a voluntary retirement, where he died, above seventy years old.[837] His translation of the “Amphitryon” of Plautus belongs rather to the theatre, but, like that of Oliva, soon to be mentioned, produced no effect there, and, like his scientific treatises, demands no especial notice. The rest of his works, including all that belong to the department of elegant literature, are to be found in a volume of moderate size, which he dedicated to the Infante Don Luis of Portugal.
The chief of them is called “Problems,” and is divided into two tractates;—the first, which is very short, being on the Sun, the Planets, the Four Elements, and the Terrestrial Paradise; and the last, which is longer, on Man and Morals, beginning with an essay on Satan, and ending with one on Flattery and Flatterers, which is especially addressed to the heir-apparent of the crown of Spain, afterwards Philip the Second. Each of these subdivisions, in each tractate, has eight lines of the old Spanish verse prefixed to it, as its Problem, or text, and the prose discussion which follows, like a gloss, constitutes the substance of the work. The whole is of a very miscellaneous character; most of it grave, like the essays on Knights and Prelates, but some of it amusing, like an essay on the Marriage of Old Men.[838] The best portions are those that have a satirical vein in them; such as the ridicule of litigious old men, and of old men that wear paint.[839]
A Dialogue on Intermittent Fevers, a Dialogue on the Natural Heat of the Body, and a Dialogue between the Doctor and the Duke, his patient, are all quite in the manner of the contemporary didactic discussions of the Italians, except that the last contains passages of a broad and free humor, approaching more nearly to the tone of comedy, or rather of farce.[840] A treatise that follows, on the Three Great Annoyances of much talking, much disputing, and much laughing,[841] and a grave discourse on Love, with which the volume ends, are all that remain worth notice. They have the same general characteristics with the rest of his miscellanies; the style of some portions of them being distinguished by more purity and more pretensions to dignity than have been found in the earlier didactic prose-writers, and especially by greater clearness and exactness of expression. Occasionally, too, we meet with an idiomatic familiarity, frankness, and spirit that are very attractive, and that partly compensate us for the absurdities of the old and forgotten doctrines in natural history and medicine, which Villalobos inculcated because they were the received doctrines of his time.
The next writer of the same class, and, on the whole, one much more worthy of consideration, is Fernan Perez de Oliva, a Cordovese, who was born about 1492, and died, still young, in 1530. His father was a lover of letters; and the son, as he himself informs us, was educated with care from his earliest youth. At twelve years of age, he was already a student in the University of Salamanca; after which he went, first, to Alcalá, when it was in the beginning of its glory; then to Paris, whose University had long attracted students from every part of Europe; and finally to Rome, where, under the protection of an uncle at the court of Leo the Tenth, all the advantages to be found in the most cultivated capital of Christendom were accessible to him.
On his uncle’s death, it was proposed to him to take the offices left vacant by that event; but, loving letters more than courtly honors, he went back to Paris, where he taught and lectured in its University for three years. Another Pope, Adrian the Sixth, was now on the throne, and, hearing of Oliva’s success, endeavoured anew to draw him to Rome; but the love of his country and of literature continued to be stronger than the love of ecclesiastical preferment. He returned, therefore, to Salamanca; became one of the original members of the rich “College of the Archbishop,” founded in 1528; and was successively chosen Professor of Ethics in the University, and its Rector. But he had hardly risen to his highest distinctions, when he died suddenly, and at a moment when so many hopes rested on him, that his death was felt as a misfortune to the cause of letters throughout Spain.[842]
Oliva’s studies at Rome had taught him how successfully the Latin writers had been imitated by the Italians, and he became anxious that they should be no less successfully imitated by the Spaniards. He felt it as a wrong done to his native language, that almost all serious prose discussions in Spain were still carried on in Latin rather than in Spanish.[843] Taking a hint, then, from Castiglione’s “Cortigiano,” and opposing the current of opinion among the learned men with whom he lived and acted, he began a didactic dialogue on the Dignity of Man, formally defending it as a work in the Spanish language written by a Spaniard. Besides this, he wrote several strictly didactic discourses;—one on the Faculties of the Mind and their Proper Use; another urging Córdova, his native city, to improve the navigation of the Guadalquivir, and so obtain a portion of the rich commerce of the Indies, which was then monopolized by Seville; and another, that was delivered at Salamanca, when he was a candidate for the chair of moral philosophy;—in all which his nephew, Morales, the historian, assures us it was his uncle’s strong desire to furnish practical examples of the power and resources of the Spanish language.[844]
The purpose of giving greater dignity to his native tongue, by employing it, instead of the Latin, on all the chief subjects of human inquiry, was certainly a fortunate one in Oliva, and soon found imitators. Juan de Sedeño published, in 1536, two prose dialogues on Love and one on Happiness; the former in a more graceful tone of gallantry, and the latter in a more philosophical spirit and with more terseness of manner, than belonged to the age.[845] Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, a man of learning, completed the dialogue of Oliva on the Dignity of Man, which had been left unfinished, and, dedicating it to Fernando Cortés, published it in 1546,[846] together with a long prose fable by Luis Mexia, on Idleness and Labor, written in a pure and somewhat elevated style, but too much indebted to the “Vision” of the Bachiller de la Torre.[847] Pedro de Navarra published, in 1567, forty Moral Dialogues, partly the result of conversations held in an Academia of distinguished persons, who met, from time to time, at the house of Fernando Cortés.[848] Pedro Mexia, the chronicler, wrote a Silva, or Miscellany, divided, in the later editions, into six books, and subdivided into a multitude of separate essays, historical and moral; declaring it to be the first work of the kind in Spanish, which, he says, he considers quite as suitable for such discussions as the Italian.[849] To this, which may be regarded as an imitation of Macrobius or of Athenæus, and which was printed in 1543, he added, in 1547, six didactic dialogues,—curious, but of little value,—in the first of which the advantages and disadvantages of having regular physicians are agreeably set forth, with a lightness and exactness of style hardly to have been expected.[850] And finally, to complete the short list, Urrea, a favored soldier of the Emperor, and at one time viceroy of Apulia,—the same person who made the poor translation of Ariosto mentioned in Don Quixote,—published, in 1566, a Dialogue on True Military Honor, which is written in a pleasant and easy style, and contains, mingled with the notions of one who says he trained himself for glory by reading romances of chivalry, not a few amusing anecdotes of duels and military adventures.[851]
Both of the works of Pedro Mexia, but especially his Silva, enjoyed no little popularity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and, in point of style, they are certainly not without merit. None, however, of the productions of any one of the authors last mentioned had so much force and character as the first part of the Dialogue on the Dignity of Man. And yet Oliva was certainly not a person of a commanding genius. His imagination never warms into poetry; his invention is never sufficient to give new and strong views to his subject; and his system of imitating both the Latin and the Italian masters rather tends to debilitate than to impart vigor to his thoughts. But there is a general reasonableness and wisdom in what he says that win and often satisfy us, and these, with his style, which, though sometimes declamatory, is yet, on the whole, pure and well settled, and his happy idea of defending and employing the Castilian, then coming into all its rights as a living language, have had the effect of giving him a more lasting reputation than that of any other Spanish prose-writer of his time.[852]
The same general tendency to a more formal and elegant style of discussion is found in a few other ethical and religious authors of the reign of Charles the Fifth that are still remembered; such as Palacios Rubios, who wrote an essay on Military Courage, for the benefit of his son;[853] Vanegas, who, under the title of “The Agony of Passing through Death,” gives us what may rather be considered an ascetic treatise on holy living;[854] and Juan de Avila, sometimes called the Apostle of Andalusia, whose letters are fervent exhortations to virtue and religion, composed with care and often with eloquence, if not with entire purity of style.[855]
The author in this class, however, who during his lifetime had the most influence was Antonio de Guevara, one of the official chroniclers of Charles the Fifth. He was a Biscayan by birth, and passed some of his earlier years at the court of Queen Isabella. In 1528 he became a Franciscan monk, but, enjoying the favor of the Emperor, he seems to have been transformed into a thorough courtier, accompanying his master during his journeys and residences in Italy and other parts of Europe, and rising successively, by the royal patronage, to be court preacher, Imperial historiographer, Bishop of Guadix, and Bishop of Mondoñedo. He died in 1545.[856]