[881] It is curious to observe, that the author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas,” (Orígenes, Tom. II. p. 31,) who wrote about 1535, Mayans, (Orígenes, Tom. I. p. 8,) who wrote in 1737, and Sarmiento, (Memorias, p. 94,) who wrote about 1760, all speak of the character of the Castilian and the prevalence of the dialects in nearly the same terms.
[882] De las Fiebres Interpoladas, Metro I., Obras, 1543, f. 27.
[883] See Mariana’s account of the glories of Toledo, Historia, Lib. XVI. c. 15, and elsewhere. He was himself from the kingdom of Toledo, and often boasts of its renown. Cervantes, in Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. 19,) implies that the Toledan was accounted the purest Spanish of his time. It still claims to be so in ours.
[884] “Also, at the same Cortes, the same King, Don Alfonso X., ordered, if thereafter there should be a doubt in any part of his kingdom about the meaning of any Castilian word, that reference thereof should be had to this city as to the standard of the Castilian tongue [como á metro de la lengua Castellana], and that they should adopt the meaning and definition here given to such word, because our tongue is more perfect here than elsewhere.” (Francisco de Pisa, Descripcion de la Imperial Ciudad de Toledo, ed. Thomas Tamaio de Vargas, Toledo, 1617, fol., Lib. I. c. 36, f. 56.) The Cortes here referred to is said by Pisa to have been held in 1253; in which year the Chronicle of Alfonso X. (Valladolid, 1554, fol., c. 2) represents the king to have been there.
[885] Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 127, and Preface to Epístolas Familiares of Guevara, ed. 1673.
[886] See the vituperative article Guevara, in Bayle.
[887] The best life of Ocampo is to be found in the “Biblioteca de los Escritores que han sido Individuos de los Seis Colegios Mayores,” etc., por Don Josef de Rezabal y Ugarte (pp. 233-238); but there is one prefixed to the edition of his Crónica, 1791.
[888] The first edition of the first four books of the Chronicle of Ocampo was published at Zamora, 1544, in a beautiful black-letter folio, and was followed by an edition of the whole at Medina del Campo, 1553, folio. The best, I suppose, is the one published at Madrid, 1791, in 2 vols. 4to.
[889] For this miserable forgery see Niceron (Hommes Illustres, Paris, 1730, Tom. XI. pp. 1-11; Tom. XX., 1732, pp. 1-6);—and for the simplicity of Ocampo in trusting to it, see the last chapter of his first book, and all the passages where he cites Juan de Viterbo y su Beroso, etc.
[890] Pero Mexia, in the concluding words of his “Historia Imperial y Cesarea.”