[259] See Declamacion, etc., of Vargas y Ponce, 1793, App., § 17; Marina, Ensayo, in Memorias de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., 1804; Liñan y Verdugo, Avisos de Forasteros, 1620, noticed (ante, [p. 103]) under the head of Romantic Fiction; and “El Filosofo del Aldea, y sus Conversaciones Familiares, su Autor el Alferez Don Baltazar Mateo Velazquez,” Zaragoza, por Diego de Ormer, 12mo, 106 leaves, s. a.; a singular book, didactic in its main purpose, but illustrating with stories its homely philosophy. I find no notice of it, though the author, in his Dedication, intimates that it is not his first published work. It seems to have been written soon after the death of Philip III. in 1621, and its last dialogue is against cultismo, of the introduction of which into Spanish prose I have spoken when noticing the “Pícara Justina” of Andreas Perez, 1605, ante, [p. 67].
[260] There are editions of Gracian’s Works, 1664, 1667, 1725, 1748, 1757, 1773, etc. I use that of Barcelona, 1748, 2 tom. 4to. His Life is in Latassa, Bib. Nueva, Tom. III. pp. 267, etc., and a pleasant account both of him and of his friend Lastañosa is to be found in Aarsens, Voyage d’Espagne, 1667, p. 294, and in the dedication to Lastañosa of the first edition of Quevedo’s “Fortuna con Seso,” 1650. His poem on “The Four Seasons,” generally printed at the end of his Works, is, I believe, the worst of them; certainly it would be difficult to find much in any language more absurd and extravagant in its false taste.
[261] Juan de Zabaleta flourished as an author from 1653 to 1667; and his works, which were soon collected, have been frequently printed, 1667, Madrid, 1728, 4to, 1754, etc. (Baena, Tom. III. p. 227.)—Christóval Lozano (noticed, pp. [91], [108]) was known as an author from 1656, by his “David Arrepentido,” to which he afterwards added his “David Perseguido,” in three volumes, and yet another work on the subject of David’s Example illustrated by the Light of Christianity; all of little value.—Juan Francisco Fernandez de Heredia wrote “Trabajos y Afanes de Hercules,” Madrid, 1682, 4to. He makes it a kind of book of emblems, but it is one of the worst of its conceited class. Latassa (Bib. Nov., Tom. IV. p. 3) notices him.
Of Antonio Perez Ramirez, I know only the “Armas contra la Fortuna,” (Madrid, 1698, 4to,) which is a translation of Boëthius, with dissertations in the worst possible taste interspersed between its several divisions.
One other author might, perhaps, have been placed at the side of Lozano,—Joseph de la Vega,—who published (at Amsterdam in 1688, 12mo) three dialogues, entitled, “Confusion de Confusiones,” to ridicule the passion for stockjobbing which came in with the Dutch East India Company, in 1602, and was then at the height of its frenzy. They are somewhat encumbered with learning, but contain anecdotes, ancient and modern, very well told. The author was a rich Jew of Antwerp, who had fled thither from Spain, and published several works between 1683 and 1693, but none, I think, of much value. Amador de los Rios, Judíos Españoles, p. 633.
[262] There is a remarkable paper, in the sixth volume of the “Seminario Erudito,” on the causes of the decline of Spain;—remarkable because, though written in the reign of Philip IV., by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, an ecclesiastic of rank, whom Charles III. afterwards asked to have canonized, it yet attributes the origin of the prostration under which Spain suffered in his time mainly to the war with the Netherlands.
[263] There is a great discrepancy in the accounts of the number of Moriscos expelled from Spain, 1609-11,—several making it a million, and one reducing it so low as a hundred and sixty thousand. But, whatever may have been the number expelled, all accounts agree as to the disastrous effects produced on a population already decaying by the loss of so many persons, who had long been the most skilful manufacturers and agriculturists in the kingdom; effects to which the many despoblados noted on our recent maps of Spain still bear melancholy testimony. (Clemencin, Notes to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 54.) In stating six hundred thousand to have been the number driven out, I have taken the reckoning of Circourt, (Tom. III. p. 103,) which seems made with care.
These unhappy persons had among them a good deal of Castilian culture, whose traces still remain in manuscripts, which, like that of the old poem of Joseph, already described, (Period I. chap. 5,) are composed in Spanish, but are written throughout in the Arabic character. Of parts of two such manuscripts I possess copies, through the kindness of Don Pascual de Gayangos. The first is a poem written in 1603, and entitled, “Discourse on the Light, and Descent, and Lineage of our Chief and Blessed Prophet, Mohammed Çalam, composed and compiled by his Servant, who most needs his Pardon, Mohammed Rabadan, a Native of Rueda, on the River Xalon.” It is divided into eight Histories, of which I possess the fourth, entitled, “History of Hexim,” who was one of the ancestors of the Prophet. It contains above two thousand lines in the short, Castilian ballad measure, and is remarkably Arabic and Mohammedan in its general tone, though with occasional allusions to the Greek mythology. It is, too, not without poetical merit, as in the following lines, which open the second canto, and describe the auspicious morning of Hexim’s marriage.
Al tiempo que el alba bella
Enseña su rostro alegre,