[1238] Additional MSS. 5469, British Museum, folio, p. 274. See Vol. II. p. 571.
[1239] See ante, p. 6.
[1240] National Library at Madrid, B, 135.
[1241] The fables and rites of the Incas, by Christoval de Molina, translated and edited by Clements R. Markham (Hakluyt Society, 1873).
[1242] [See. Vol. II. p. 576.—Ed.]
[1243] For the bibliography of Acosta, see Vol. II. p. 420, 421.
[1244] Notices of the life and works of Acosta have been given in biographical dictionaries, and in histories of the Jesuits. An excellent biography will be found in a work entitled Los Antiquos Jesuitas del Peru, by Don Enrique Torres Saldamando, which was published at Lima in 1885. See also an introductory notice in Markham’s edition (1880).
[1245] Thus his lists of the Incas, of the names of months and of festivals, are very defective; and his list of names of stars, though copied from Balboa without acknowledgment, is incomplete.
[1246] Acosta was the chief source whence the civilized world of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, beyond the limits of Spain, derived a knowledge of Peruvian civilization. Purchas, in his Pilgrimage (ed. of 1623, lib. v. p. 869; vi. p. 931), quotes largely from the learned Jesuit, and an abstract of his work is given in Harris’s Voyages (lib. i. cap. xiii. pp. 751-799). He is much relied upon as an authority by Robertson, and is quoted 19 times in Prescott’s Conquest of Peru, thus taking the fourth place as an authority with regard to that work, since Garcilasso is quoted 89 times, Cieza de Leon 45, Ondegardo 41, Acosta 19.
[1247] Of whose parentage a pleasing story is told. He was a native of Truxillo, of French parents, his father being a metal-founder. When he was a small boy his father said to him, “Study, little Charles, study! and this bell that I am founding shall be rung for you when you are the bishop.” (“Estudiar, Carlete, estudiar! que con esta campana te han de repicar cuando seas obispo.”) Dr. Corni rose to be a prelate of great virtue and erudition, and an eloquent preacher. At last he became Bishop of Truxillo in 1620, and when he heard the chimes which were rung on his approach to the city, he said, “That bell which excels all the others was founded by my father.” (“Aquella campana que sobresale entre las demas le fundio mi padre.”)