Notwithstanding the queen's most earnest wishes, it may be doubted whether this would have ever been achieved without the co-operation of a man like Ximenes, whose character combined in itself all the essential elements of a reformer. Happily, Isabella was permitted to see before her death, if not the completion, at least the commencement, of a decided amendment in the morals of the religious orders; an amendment, which, so far from being transitory in its character calls forth the most emphatic eulogium from a Castilian writer far in the following century; who, while he laments their ancient laxity, boldly challenges comparison for the religious communities of his own country, with those of any other, in temperance, chastity, and exemplary purity of life and conversation. [41]
* * * * *
The authority on whom the life of Cardinal Ximenes mainly rests, is Alvaro Gomez de Castro. He was born in the village of St. Eulalia, near Toledo, in 1515, and received his education at Alcalá, where he obtained great repute for his critical acquaintance with the ancient classics. He was afterwards made professor of the humanities in the university; a situation which he filled with credit, but subsequently exchanged for the rhetorical chair in a school recently founded at Toledo. While thus occupied, he was chosen by the university of Alcalá to pay the most distinguished honor, which could be rendered to the memory of its illustrious founder, by a faithful record of his extraordinary life. The most authentic sources of information were thrown open to him. He obtained an intimate acquaintance with the private life of the cardinal, from three of his principal domestics, who furnished abundance of reminiscences from personal observation, while the archives of the university supplied a mass of documents relating to the public services of its patron. From these and similar materials, Gomez prepared his biography, after many years of patient labor. The work fully answered public expectation; and its merits are such as to lead the learned Nic. Antonio to express a doubt, whether anything more excellent or perfect in its way could be achieved; "quo opere in eo genere an praestantius quidquam aut perfectius, esse possit, non immerito saepe dubitavi." (Bibliotheca Nova, tom. i. p. 59.) The encomium may be thought somewhat excessive; but it cannot be denied, that the narrative is written in an easy and natural manner, with fidelity and accuracy, with commendable liberality of opinion, though with a judgment sometimes warped into an undue estimate of the qualities of his hero. It is distinguished, moreover, by such beauty and correctness of Latinity, as have made it a text-book in many of the schools and colleges of the Peninsula. The first edition, being that used in the present work, was published at Alcalá, in 1569. It has since been reprinted twice in Germany, and perhaps elsewhere. Gomez was busily occupied with other literary lucubrations during the remainder of his life, and published several works in Latin prose and verse, both of which he wrote with ease and elegance. He died of a catarrh, in 1580, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, leaving behind him a reputation for disinterestedness and virtue, which is sufficiently commemorated in two lines of his epitaph;
"Nemini unquam sciens nocui,
Prodesse quam pluribus curavi."
The work of Gomez has furnished the basis for all those biographies of Ximenes which have since appeared in Spain. The most important of these, probably, is Quintanilla's; which, with little merit of selection or arrangement, presents a copious mass of details, drawn from every quarter whence his patient industry could glean them. Its author was a Franciscan, and employed in procuring the beatification of Cardinal Ximenes by the court of Rome; a circumstance which probably disposed him to easier faith in the marvellous of his story, than most of his readers will be ready to give. The work was published at Palermo in 1653.
In addition to these authorities I have availed myself of a curious old manuscript, presented to me by Mr. O. Rich, entitled "Suma de la Vida del R. S. Cardenal Don Fr. Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros." It was written within half a century after the cardinal's death, by "un criado de la casa de Coruña." The original, in "very ancient letter," was extant in the archives of that noble house in Quintanilla's time, and is often cited by him. (Archetypo, apend., p. 77.) Its author evidently had access to those contemporary notices, some of which furnished the basis of Castro's narrative, from which, indeed, it exhibits no material discrepancy.
The extraordinary character of Ximenes has naturally attracted the attention of foreign writers, and especially the French, who have produced repeated biographies of him. The most eminent of these is by Fléchier, the eloquent bishop of Nismes. It is written with the simple elegance and perspicuity, which characterize his other compositions; and in the general tone of its sentiments, on all matters both of church and state, is quite as orthodox as the most bigoted admirer of the cardinal could desire. Another life, by Marsollier, has obtained a very undeserved repute. The author, not content with the extraordinary qualities really appertaining to his hero, makes him out a sort of universal genius, quite ridiculous, rivalling Molière's Dr. Pancrace himself. One may form some idea of the historian's accuracy from the fact, that he refers the commencement and conduct of the war of Granada chiefly to the counsels of Ximenes, who, as we have seen, was not even introduced at court till after the close of the war. Marsollier reckoned largely on the ignorance and gullibility of his readers. The event proved he was not mistaken.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 1495.—Salazar de Mendoza, Crón. del Gran Cardenal, lib. 2, cap. 45, 46.—Zurita, Anales, tom. v. fol. 61.—Pulgar, Claros Varones, tit. 4.
His disorder was an abscess on the kidneys, which confined him to the house nearly a year before his death. When this event happened, a white cross of extraordinary magnitude and splendor, shaped precisely like that on his arms, was seen in the heavens directly over his house, by a crowd of spectators, for more than two hours; a full account of which was duly transmitted to Rome by the Spanish court, and has obtained easy credit with the principal Spanish historians.