[308] Doblado’s Letters, 1822, p. 113.
[309] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inq., Tom. II. p. 446. It may be deemed worthy of notice, that Oliver Goldsmith pays an appropriate tribute to the merits of Father Feyjoó, and relates an anecdote of his showing the people of a village through which he happened to pass that what they esteemed a miracle was, in truth, only a natural effect of reflected light; thus exposing himself to a summons from the Inquisition. (“The Bee,” No. III., Oct. 20, 1759, Miscellaneous Works, London, 1812, 8vo, Vol. IV. p. 193.) But after Feyjoó’s death, the Inquisition ordered only a trifling expurgation of his “Teatro Crítico,” in one passage. Index, 1790.
[310] The “Teatro Crítico” and “Cartas Eruditas y Curiosas,” with the discussions they provoked, fill fifteen and sometimes sixteen volumes. The edition of 1778 has a Life of Feyjoó prefixed to it, written by Campomanes, the distinguished minister of state under Charles III.; the same person who, on the nomination of Franklin, was made a member of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. Clemencin says truly of Feyjoó, that “to his enlightened and religious mind is due the overthrow of many vulgar errors, and a great part of the progress in civilization made by Spain in the eighteenth century.” Note to Don Quixote, Tom. V., 1836, p. 35.
[311] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inquisition, Tom. IV., 1818, pp. 29, 43. The “Papel” of Macanaz is on the Index of the Inquisition, 1790.
[312] Mahon, War of the Succession, 1832, p. 180. Tapia, Historia, Tom. IV. p. 32. San Phelipe, Comentarios, Lib. XIV.
[313] Llorente, Hist., Tom. II. pp. 420, 424, Tom. IV. p. 31. The data of Llorente are not so precise as they ought to be, but any thing approaching his results is of most fearful import. In a pamphlet, however, printed in 1817, (as he declares in his Autobiography, p. 170,) he asserts that, between 1680 and 1808, there perished in the fires of the Inquisition fifteen hundred and seventy-eight persons, and that eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight more were subjected to degrading punishments, making a grand total of fourteen thousand three hundred and sixty-four victims, of which the fifteen hundred and seventy-eight burnt alive must all have perished between 1680 and 1781, when, as we shall see in the next chapter, the last victim was immolated.
[314] Noticia del Viage de España hecha de Orden del Rey, por L. J. Velazquez, Madrid, 1765, 4to, passim. Llorente, Tom. IV. p. 51. Tapia, Tom. IV. p. 73.
[315] “El Pelayo, Poema de D. Alonso de Solís Folch de Cardona Rodriguez de las Varillas, Conde de Saldueña,” etc., (Madrid, 1754, 4to,) twelve cantos in octave stanzas, written in the most affected style.—Joseph Moraleja, “El Entretenido, Segunda Parte” (Madrid, 1741, 4to); a continuation of the Entretenido of Sanchez Tortoles, containing the amusements of a society of friends for four days; entremeses, stories, odds and ends of poetry, astronomical calculations, etc., a strange and absurd mixture. Baena (Hijos de Madrid, Tom. III. p. 81) has a life of the author. The “Noches Alegres” of Isidro Fr. Ortiz Gallardo de Villaroel, (Salamanca, 1758, 4to,) is a shorter book, and nearly all in verse. Both are worthless.
[316] Luzan, Arte Poética, ed. 1789, Tom. I. pp. xix., etc.
[317] Luis Joseph Velazquez, “Orígenes de la Poesía Castellana,” Málaga, 1754, 4to, pp. 175. J. A. Dieze, who was a Professor at Göttingen, and died in 1785, published a German translation of it in 1769, with copious and excellent notes, which more than double, not only the size of the original work, but its value. The Life of Velazquez, who was Marquis of Valdeflores, though he does not generally allude to his title in his printed works, is to be found in Sempere y Guarinos, Bib., Tom. VI. p. 139.