[255] “Ortografía Castellana, por Mateo Aleman,” Mexico, 1609, 4to, 83 leaves.
[256] “Noches Claras, Primera Parte, por Manoel de Faria y Sousa,” Madrid, 1624, 12mo, a thick volume. Barbosa, Tom. III. p. 257.
[257] Francisco de Portugal, Count Vimioso, left a son, who published his father’s poetry with a life prefixed, but I know no edition of the “Arte de Galantería,” etc., earlier than that of Lisbon, 1670, 4to.
[258] Before we come into the period when bad taste overwhelmed every thing, we should slightly refer to a few authors who were not infected by it, and who yet are not of importance enough to be introduced into the text.
The first of them is Diego de Estella, who was born in 1524, and died in 1578. He was much connected with the great diplomatist, Cardinal Granvelle, and published many works in Latin and Spanish, the best of which, as to style and manner, are “The Vanity of the World,” 1574, and “Meditations on the Love of God,” 1578.
Several treatises in the form of biography, but really ascetic and didactic in their character, were published soon afterwards, which are written with some purity and vigor; such as the Life of Pius V., (1595,) by Antonio Fuenmayor, who died at the early age of thirty; the Life of Santa Teresa, (1599,) by Diego de Yepes, one of her correspondents, and the confessor of the last dark years of Philip II.; and the Lives of two devout women, Doña Sancha Carillo, and Doña Ana Ponce de Leon, (1604,) by Martin de Roa, a Jesuit, who long represented the interests of his Society at the court of Rome.
To these may be added three other works of very different characters.
The “Examen de Ingenios,” or How to determine, from the Physical and External Condition, who are fit for Training in the Sciences, by Juan de Huarte, (Alcalá, 1640, 12mo, first published in 1566,) is one of them. It enjoyed a prodigious reputation in its time, was often published in Spanish, and was translated into all the principal languages of Europe; into English by Richard Carew, 1594; and, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, into German by a person no less distinguished than Lessing, whose version, entitled “Prüfung der Köpfe,” was printed for the second time at Wittenberg, 1785, 12mo. It is a work full of striking, but often wild, conjectures in physiology, written in a forcible, clear style, and Lessing aptly compares its author to a spirited horse, that, in galloping over the stones, never strikes fire so brilliantly as he does when he stumbles. It is praised by Forner, (Obras, Madrid, 1843, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 61,) and is on the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 734. The “Examen de Maridos,” a spirited play of Alarcon, (see, ante, II. 322,) and the “Vexamen de Ingenios,” a lively prose satire of Cancer, (Obras, 1761, p. 105,) were, I suppose, understood by their contemporaries to have reference to the title of the “Examen de Ingenios,” then very popular. A work not unlike the “Examen de Ingenios” appeared at Barcelona, (1637, 4to,) entitled “El Sol Solo, etc., y Anatomía de Ingenios,” taking a view of the same subject more in the nature of Physiognomy, and not without an approach to what has since been called Phrenology. It was written by Estevan Pujasol, an Aragonese; and is curious for its manner of treating the subjects it discusses,—half anatomical, half spiritual; but is not otherwise interesting.
The second is the “Historia Moral y Philosóphica” of Pero Sanchez of Toledo, published at Toledo, 1590, folio, when its author, who was connected with the cathedral there, was already an old man. It consists of the Lives of distinguished men of antiquity, like Plato, Alexander, and Cicero, and ends with a treatise on Death;—each of the Lives being accompanied by moral and Christian reflections, which are sometimes written in a flowing and fervent style, but are rarely appropriate, and never original or powerful.
The last is by Vincencio Carducho, a Florentine painter, who, when quite a boy, was brought to Spain in 1585, by his brother Bartolomé, and died there in 1638, having risen to considerable eminence in his art. In 1634, he published, at Madrid, “Diálogos de la Pintura, su Defensa, Orígen,” etc. (4to, 229 leaves); but the licencias are dated 1632 and 1633. It is written in good plain prose, without particular merit as to style, and is declared by Cean Bermudez, (Diccionario, Tom. I. p. 251,) in his notice of the author, to be “el mejor libro que tenemos de pintura en Castellano.” At the end is an Appendix, in which are attacks of Lope de Vega, Juan de Jauregui, and others, on a duty laid upon pictures, which, Cean Bermudez says, “the efforts of Carducho and his friends succeeded in removing in 1637.”