His works were not numerous, but they were fitted to the atmosphere in which they were produced and enjoyed at once a great popularity. His “Dial for Princes, or Marcus Aurelius,” first published in 1529, and the fruit, as he tells us, of eleven years’ labor,[857] was not only often reprinted in Spanish, but was translated into Latin, Italian, French, and English; in each of which last two languages it appeared many times before the end of the century.[858] It is a kind of romance, founded on the life and character of Marcus Aurelius, and resembles, in some points, the “Cyropædia” of Xenophon; its purpose being to place before the Emperor Charles the Fifth the model of a prince more perfect for wisdom and virtue than any other of antiquity. But the Bishop of Mondoñedo adventured beyond his prerogative. He pretended that his Marcus Aurelius was genuine history, and appealed to a manuscript in Florence, which did not exist, as if he had done little more than make a translation of it. In consequence of this, Pedro de Rua, a professor of elegant literature in the college at Soria, addressed a letter to him, in 1540, exposing the fraud. Two other letters followed, written with more freedom and purity of style than any thing in the works of the Bishop himself, and leaving him no real ground on which to stand.[859] He, however, defended himself as well as he was able; at first cautiously, but afterwards, when he was more closely assailed, by assuming the wholly untenable position, that all ancient profane history was no more true than his romance of Marcus Aurelius, and that he had as good a right to invent for his own high purposes as Herodotus or Livy. From this time he was severely attacked; more so, perhaps, than he would have been, if the gross frauds of Annius of Viterbo had not then been recent. But however this may be, it was done with a bitterness that forms a strong contrast to the applause bestowed in France, near the end of the eighteenth century, upon a somewhat similar work on the same subject by Thomas.[860]
After all, however, the “Dial for Princes” is little worthy of the excitement it occasioned. It is filled with letters and speeches ill conceived and inappropriate; and is written in a formal and inflated style. Perhaps we are now indebted to it for nothing so much as for the beautiful fable of “The Peasant of the Danube,” evidently suggested to La Fontaine by one of the discourses through which Guevara endeavoured to give life and reality to his fictions.[861]
In the same spirit, though with less boldness, he wrote his “Lives of the Ten Roman Emperors”; a work which, like his Dial for Princes, he dedicated to Charles the Fifth. In general, he has here followed the authorities on which he claims to found his narrative, such as Dion Cassius and the minor Latin historians, showing, at the same time, a marked desire to imitate Plutarch and Suetonius, whom he announces as his models. But he has not been able entirely to resist the temptation of inserting fictitious letters, and even unfounded stories; thus giving a false view, if not of the facts of history, at least of some of the characters he records. His style, however, though it still wants purity and appropriateness, is better and more simple than it is in his romance on Marcus Aurelius.[862]
Similar characteristics mark a large collection of Letters printed by him as early as 1539. Many of them are addressed to persons of great consideration in his time, such as the Marquis of Pescara, the Duke of Alva, Iñigo de Velasco, Grand Constable of Castile, and Fadrique Enriquez, Grand Admiral. But some were evidently never sent to the persons addressed, like the loyal one to Juan de Padilla, the head of the Comuneros, and two impertinent letters to the Governor Luis Bravo, who had foolishly fallen in love in his old age. Others are mere fictions; among which are a correspondence of the Emperor Trajan with Plutarch and the Roman Senate, which Guevara vainly protests he translated from the Greek, without saying where he found the originals,[863] and a long epistle about Laïs and other courtesans of antiquity, in which he gives the details of their conversations as if he had listened to them himself. Most of the letters, though they are called “Familiar Epistles,” are merely essays or disputations, and a few are sermons in form, with an announcement of the occasions on which they were preached. None has the easy or natural air of a real correspondence. In fact, they were all, no doubt, prepared expressly for publication and for effect; and, notwithstanding their stiffness and formality, were greatly admired. They were often printed in Spain; they were translated into all the principal languages of Europe; and, to express the value set on them, they were generally called “The Golden Epistles.” But notwithstanding their early success, they have long been disregarded, and only a few passages that touch the affairs of the time or the life of the Emperor can now be read with interest or pleasure.[864]
Besides these works, Guevara wrote several formal treatises. Two are strictly theological.[865] Another is on the Inventors of the Art of Navigation and its Practice;—a subject which might be thought foreign from the Bishop’s experience, but with which, he tells us, he had become familiar by having been much at sea, and visited many ports on the Mediterranean.[866] Of his two other treatises, which are all that remain to be noticed, one is called “Contempt of Court Life and Praise of the Country”; and the other, “Counsels for Favorites, and Teachings for Courtiers.” They are moral discussions, suggested by Castiglione’s “Courtier,” then at the height of its popularity, and are written with great elaborateness, in a solemn and stiff style, bearing the same relations to truth and wisdom that Arcadian pastorals do to nature.[867]
All the works of Guevara show the impress of their age, and mark their author’s position at court. They are burdened with learning, yet not without proofs of experience in the ways of the world;—they often show good sense, but they are monotonous from the stately dignity he thinks it necessary to assume on his own account, and from the rhetorical ornament by which he hopes to commend them to the regard of his readers. Such as they are, however, they illustrate and exemplify, more truly, perhaps, than any thing else of their age, the style of writing most in favor at the court of Charles the Fifth, especially during the latter part of that monarch’s reign.
But by far the best didactic prose work of this period, though unknown and unpublished till two centuries afterwards, is that commonly cited under the simple title of “The Dialogue on Languages”;—a work which, at any time, would be deemed remarkable for the naturalness and purity of its style, and is peculiarly so at this period of formal and elaborate eloquence. “I write,” says its author, “as I speak; only I take more pains to think what I have to say, and then I say it as simply as I can; for, to my mind, affectation is out of place in all languages.” Who it was that entertained an opinion so true, but in his time so uncommon, is not certain. Probably it was Juan Valdés, a person who enjoys the distinction of being one of the first Spaniards that embraced the opinions of the Reformation, and the very first who made an effort to spread them. He was educated at the University of Alcalá, and during a part of his life possessed not a little political consequence, being much about the person of the Emperor, and sent by him to act as secretary and adviser to Toledo, the great viceroy of Naples. It is not known what became of him afterwards; but he died in 1540, six years before Charles the Fifth attempted to establish the Inquisition in Naples; and therefore it is not likely that he was seriously molested while he was in office there.[868]
The Dialogue on Languages is supposed to be carried on between two Spaniards and two Italians, at a country-house on the sea-shore, near Naples, and is an acute discussion on the origin and character of the Castilian. Parts of it are learned, but in these the author sometimes falls into errors;[869] other parts are lively and entertaining; and yet others are full of good sense and sound criticism. The principal personage—the one who gives all the instructions and explanations—is named Valdés; and from this circumstance, as well as from some intimations in the Dialogue itself, it may be inferred that the reformer was its author, and that it was written before 1536;[870]—a point which, if established, would account for the suppression of the manuscript, as the work of an adherent of Luther. In any event, the Dialogue was not printed till 1737, and therefore, as a specimen of pure and easy style, was lost on the age that produced it.[871]
For us it is important, because it shows, with more distinctness than any other literary monument of its time, what was the state of the Spanish language in the reign of the Emperor Charles the Fifth; a circumstance of consequence to the condition of the literature, and one to which we therefore turn with interest.
As might be expected, we find, when we look back, that the language of letters in Spain has made material progress since we last noticed it in the reign of John the Second. The example of Juan de Mena had been followed, and the national vocabulary enriched during the interval of a century, by successive poets, from the languages of classical antiquity. From other sources, too, and through other channels, important contributions had flowed in. From America and its commerce had come the names of those productions which half a century of intercourse had brought to Spain, and rendered familiar there,—terms few, indeed, in number, but of daily use.[872] From Germany and the Low Countries still more had been introduced by the accession of Charles the Fifth,[873] who, to the great annoyance of his Spanish subjects, arrived in Spain surrounded by foreign courtiers, and speaking with a stranger accent the language of the country he was called to govern.[874] A few words, too, had come accidentally from France; and now, in the reign of Philip the Second, a great number, amounting to the most considerable infusion the language had received since the time of the Arabs, were brought in through the intimate connection of Spain with Italy and the increasing influence of Italian letters and Italian culture.[875]