[327] “Historia del Famoso Predicador, Fray Gerundio de Campazas,” Madrid, 1813, 4 tom. 12mo, Tom. I. p. 307. In the first edition, as well as in several other editions, it is said to be written by Francisco Lobon de Salazar, a name which has generally been supposed to be a fictitious one; but which is, in fact, that of a friend, who was a parish priest at Villagarcia, where Father Isla, who mentions him often in his letters, wrote his Friar Gerund.
[328] Cartas Familiares, 1790, Tom. VI. p. 313.
[329] Fray Gerundio, Tom. I. p. 309.
[330] Cartas Familiares, Tom. II. p. 170.
[331] Vida de Isla, p. 63. Llorente, Hist., Tom. II. p. 450. Cartas Familiares de Isla, Tom. II. pp. 168, etc., and Tom. III. p. 213. There are several amusing letters about Fray Gerundio in the second volume of the Cartas Familiares. The Inquisition (Index, 1790) not only forbade the work itself, but forbade any body to publish any thing for or against it.
[332] Watt, Bibliotheca, art. Isla. Wieland, Teutsche Merkur, 1773, Tom. III. p. 196. Baretti’s Proposals for Printing the Translation of Friar Gerund, prefixed to that work, London, 1772, 2 tom. 8vo.
[333] The autograph manuscript of “El Ciceron,” neatly written out in 219 folio pages, double columns, with the corrections of the author and the erasures of the censor, is in the Boston Athenæum. It is accompanied by three autograph letters of Father Isla; by the opinion of the censor, that the poem ought not to be published; and by an answer to that opinion;—the last two being anonymous. These curious and valuable manuscripts were procured in Madrid by E. Weston, Esq., and presented by him to the Library of the Athenæum, in 1844.
[334] The works alluded to are,—“El Mercurio General,” (Madrid, 1784, 18mo,) being extracts from accounts claimed to have been written by Father Isla for that journal, in 1758, of the European events of the year, but not certainly his;—“Cartas de Juan de la Enzina,” (Madrid, 1784, 18mo,) a satirical work on the follies of Spanish medicine;—“Cartas Familiares,” written between 1744 and 1781; published, 1785-86, also in a second edition, Madrid, 1790, 6 tom. 12mo;—“Coleccion de Papeles Crítico-Apologéticos,” (1788, 2 tom. 18mo,) in defence of Feyjoó;—“Sermones,” Madrid, 1792, 6 tom. 8vo;—“Rebusco,” etc., (Madrid, 1790, 18mo,) a collection of miscellanies, some of which are probably not by Father Isla;—“Los Aldeanos Críticos”; again in defence of Feyjoó;—and various papers in the Seminario Erudito, Tom. XVI., XX., and XXXIV., and in the supplementary volume of the “Fray Gerundio.” A poem, entitled “Sueño Político,” (Madrid, 1785, 18mo,) on the accession of Charles III., is also attributed to him; and so are “Cartas atrasadas del Parnaso,” a satire which is not supposed to have been written by him, though it reminds one sometimes of the “Ciceron.”
[335] “Aventuras de Gil Blas de Santillana, robadas á España, adoptadas en Francia por Mons. Le Sage, restituidas á su Patria y á su Lengua nativa, por un Español zeloso, que no sufre que se burlen de su Nacion,” Madrid, 1787, 6 tom. 8vo, and often since. Though in great poverty himself, Isla gave any profit that might come from his version of the Gil Blas to assist a poor Spanish knight.
[336] Another continuation of Gil Blas, less happy even than that of Father Isla, appeared, in 2 tom. 8vo, at Madrid, in 1792, entitled “Genealogia de Gil Blas, Continuacion de la Vida de este famoso Sujeto, por su Hijo Don Alfonso Blas de Liria.” Its author was Don Bernardo Maria de Calzada, a person who, a little earlier, had translated much from the French. (Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. VI. p. 231.) This work, too, the author declared to be a translation, and, like Isla, set forth on his title-page that it was “restored to the language in which it was originally written.” But the whole is a worthless fiction, title-page and all, though the attempt to make out for Gil Blas a clear and noble genealogy on the side of his mother must be admitted to be a truly Spanish fancy. (See Libros III. y IV.) The story is unfinished.