[838] If Poggio’s trifle, “An Seni sit Uxor ducenda,” had been published when Villalobos wrote, I should not doubt he had seen it. As it is, the coincidence may not be accidental, for Poggio died in 1449, though his Dialogue was not, I believe, printed till the present century.
[839] The Problemas constitute the first part of the Obras de Villalobos, 1544, and fill 34 leaves.
[840] Obras, f. 35.
[841] I have translated the title of this Treatise “The Three Great Annoyances.” In the original it is “The Three Great ——,” leaving the title, says Villalobos in his Prólogo, unfinished, so that every body may fill it up as he likes.
[842] The most ample life of Oliva is in Rezabal y Ugarte, “Biblioteca de los Escritores, que han sido individuos de los seis Colegios Mayores” (Madrid, 1805, 4to, pp. 239, etc.). But all that we know about him, of any real interest, is to be found in the exposition he made of his claims and merits when he contended publicly for the chair of Moral Philosophy at Salamanca. (Obras, 1787, Tom. II. pp. 26-51.) In the course of it, he says his travels all over Spain and out of it, in pursuit of knowledge, had amounted to more than three thousand leagues.
[843] Obras, Tom. I. p. xxiii.
[844] The works of Oliva have been published at least twice, the first time by his nephew, Ambrosio de Morales, 4to, Córdova, in 1585, and again at Madrid, 1787, 2 vols. 12mo. In the Index Expurgatorius, (1667, p. 424,) they are forbidden to be read, “till they are corrected,”—a phrase which seems to have left each copy of them to the discretion of the spiritual director of its owner. In the edition of 1787, a sheet was cancelled, in order to get rid of a note of Morales. See Index of 1790.
In the same volume with the minor works of Oliva, Morales published fifteen moral discourses of his own, and one by Pedro Valles of Córdova, none of which have much literary value, though several, like one on the Advantage of Teaching with Gentleness, and one on the Difference between Genius and Wisdom, are marked with excellent sense. That of Valles is on the Fear of Death.
[845] Siguense dos Coloquios de Amores y otro de Bienaventurança, etc., por Juan de Sedeño, vezino de Arevalo, 1536, sm. 4to, no printer or place, pp. 16. This is the same Juan de Sedeño who translated the “Celestina” into verse in 1540, and who wrote the “Suma de Varones Ilustres” (Arevalo, 1551, and Toledo, 1590, folio);—a poor biographical dictionary, containing lives of about two hundred distinguished personages, alphabetically arranged, and beginning with Adam. Sedeño was a soldier, and served in Italy.
[846] The whole Dialogue—both the part written by Oliva and that written by Francisco Cervantes—was published at Madrid (1772, 4to) in a new edition by Cerdá y Rico, with his usual abundant, but awkward, prefaces and annotations.