[271] One of the most remarkable books that can be consulted, to illustrate the character and feelings of all classes of society in Spain at the end of the seventeenth century, is the “Relacion,” etc., of this “Auto General” of 1680, published immediately afterwards at Madrid, by Joseph del Olmo, one of the persons who had been most busy in its arrangements. It is a small quarto of 308 pages, and gives, as if describing a magnificent theatrical pageant, the details of the scene, which began at seven o’clock in the morning of June 30th, and was not over till nine o’clock of the following morning, the king and queen sitting in their box or balcony, to witness it, fourteen hours of that time. Eighty-five grandees entered themselves as especial familiares, or servants, of the Holy Office, to do honor to the occasion; and the king sent from his own hand the first faggot to the accursed pile. The whole number of victims exhibited was one hundred and twenty, of whom twenty-one were burnt alive; but it does not appear that the royal party actually witnessed this portion of the atrocities. From the whole account, however, there can be no doubt that devout Spaniards generally regarded the exhibition with favor, and most of them with a much stronger feeling. Madame d’Aulnoy (Voyage, Tom. III. p. 154) had a description of the ceremonies intended for this auto da fé given to her, as if it were to be an honor to the monarchy, by one of the Counsellors of the Inquisition; but I think she left Madrid before it occurred.
[272] See the first of Doblado’s remarkable Letters, where he says, “You hear from the pulpit the duties that men owe to ‘both their Majesties’; and a foreigner is often surprised at the hopes expressed by Spaniards, that ‘his Majesty’ will be pleased to grant them life and health for some years more.” The Dict. of the Academy, 1736, verb. Magestad, illustrates this still further.
[273] Partida Segunda, Tit. XIII.
[274] Tapia, Hist., Tom. IV. p. 19.
[275] See the end of “El Segundo Scipion,” and that of “El Segundo Blason de Austria,” by Calderon; and the Dedication of his History to Charles II., by Solís, in which, with a slight touch of the affectations of cultismo, which Solís did not always avoid, he tells this “king of shreds and patches”: “I find, in the shadow of your Majesty, the splendor that is wanting in my own works.” In the same spirit, Lupercio de Argensola made the canonization of San Diego a sort of prophetical canonization of Philip II., in a cancion of no mean merit as a poem, but one that shocks all religious feeling, by recalling the apotheosis of the Roman emperors.
[276] Lord Mahon’s excellent “History of the War of the Succession in Spain” (London, 1832, 8vo) leaves the same general impression on the mind of the reader, as to the effect of that war on the Spanish character, that is left by the contemporary accounts of it. It is, no doubt, the true one.
[277] The Royal Library, now the National Library, at Madrid, which was strictly the earliest literary project of the reign of Philip V., was founded in 1711; but for several years it was an institution of little importance. El Bibliotecario y el Trovador, Madrid, 1841, folio, p. 3.
[278] “Historia de la Academia,” in the Preface to the “Diccionario de la Lengua Castellana, por la Real Academia Española,” Madrid, Tom. I. 1726, folio. Sempere y Guarinos, Biblioteca, 1785, Discurso Preliminar, and Tom. I. p. 55.
[279] Garcés, Vigor y Elegancia de la Lengua Castellana, Madrid, 1791, 2 tom. 8vo, Prólogo to each volume. Mendoza used reluctantly such words as centinela, and Coloma introduced dique, etc., from his Dutch experience. Navarrete (Vida de Cervantes, pp. 163-169) and Garcés (loc. cit.) show the value of what Cervantes did, and Clemencin (ed. D. Quixote, Tom. V. pp. 99, 292, and 357) gives a list of the Latin, Italian, and other words used by Cervantes, but not always naturalized, on which, in various notes elsewhere, he seems to look with less favor than Garcés does. Quite as curious as either are the words, which Blasco (Universal Redencion, 1584) and Lopez Pinciano (El Pelayo, 1605) thought it necessary to put into vocabularies at the end of their respective poems, and to define for their readers, among which are fatal, natal, fugaz, gruta, abandonar, adular, anhelo, aplauso, arrojarse, assedio, etc.,—all now familiar Castilian.
[280] It is impossible to open the works of Count Villamediana, and the other followers of Góngora, without finding proofs of their willingness to change the language of Spanish literature; but there is a small and very imperfect list of the words and phrases these innovators favored, to be found in the “Declamacion contra los Abusos de la Lengua Castellana,” by Vargas y Ponce, p. 150, which will at once illustrate their general purpose.