expert Allen," as Dryden calls him, was not far off. Now, if there was one thing which James did understand, it was seamanship; and it is just possible, that he might have helped Spain with such a command at sea, as his son, the Duke of Berwick, did in the war of the Succession by commanding her armies on land. This excellent good plot was doomed to be spoilt by the Inquisition. D'Arce Reynoso told his royal master, in his own odd metaphor, that "he felt the knocker of his conscience beating loud and long at the doors of duty," and he could not but in honest zeal and love warn him, how dangerous it was to trust the charge of the most Catholic fleet of Spain to such a doubtful Catholic as the Duke of York. His arguments, says Giraldo, were so close and conclusive, that Philip IV. cancelled the order he had given.

Juan Manuel Giraldo extols this discreet advice, without any symptom of misgiving, in a book published in 1695, seven years after this suspected Prince had lost the three kingdoms of his rightful inheritance for The inference had not even then found its way to the small crevices, through which any external light could find its way to the understanding of a Secretary of the Inquisition.

a mass.

(107.) Other writers have enlarged sufficiently on the cruelty and bigotry of Inquisitors.

Sufficient re

gard has scarcely yet been paid to their stupidity. Dr. Joaquin Villanueva, one of the ablest of the ecclesiastical statesmen, who took a part in the suppression of

the long-established nuisance by the Cortes at Cadiz, tells us, that in his youth, under the reign of Charles III. it was a kind of proverb among students at college, that the most able and promising would rise to dignified offices in the Church, or, as civilians, in courts of law; but for the greatest blockheads, they were sure to find places in the Inquisition; "Præstet fides supplementum." A strong unreasoning faith would supply all defects. His subsequent life was full of experiences attesting the truth of the proverb; and indeed his writings are in this respect more valuable than Llorente's. The facts which he states are as indisputable, as they are instructive, and stated with equal learning and shrewdness.*

Our estimate is briefly this, that the Inquisition, except in those agonizing periods before alluded to, was not so bloody as has been supposed, and we may apply to Llorente's uncertain estimates the proverb of his country, "The lion is not so red as he is painted." Those crowded public executions are scenes which belong to times of public paroxysm. All history pronounces against their being for any long time sustained. But the perpetual character of its deeds was scarcely less loathsome, and perhaps even more destructive to the best interests of civilization and humanity. Let any man look through the list of Spain's best public men during the three centuries while it lasted.

* Villanueva, Vida Literaria, Lond. 1825. 2 Vols. pecially c. xxxix. and xl.

See es

How few, if any, escaped some amount of vexation from the Inquisition! Her best commanders in the field, her wisest statesmen, her philosophers, her poets, her public benefactors and authors of wise inventions, as well as her most learned and eloquent divines and teachers, were all by turns delated, imprisoned, and, as far as the effect of such sentences could extend, branded with public suspicion and infamy. What more effectual mode could a great country take to destroy itself?

(108.) Unhappily the institution had its origin in a time, which the Spaniards had otherwise reason to regard as great and glorious. It was not wonderful, therefore, that Gongora should have spoken of its establishment as one of the true triumphs of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.* Fifty years later, and after the days of D'Arce Reynoso, honest Father Navarrete tells us how he converted a Frenchman, M. Dandron, the companion of his homeward voyage, to his way of thinking about it. They had come from India to Madagascar in the spring of 1671, and while they were at anchor in Port Dauphin, his French companions amused themselves with putting up the Spanish friar to defend the Inquisition. "They had heard," says Navarrete, "from certain ill-disposed persons many harsh, rude, and ridiculous things about it, which had no existence anywhere. I talked with the gentleman, M. Dandron, and told him the true mode of the procedure, the secrecy, the piety, the mercy of the tri

* In his poem on the Royal Reception at Guadalupe.

bunal, the authority, gravity, zeal, virtue, and learning of its ministers, etc. With which he was well content, and said it would be a mighty good thing if it could be introduced into France."* M. Dandron's compliment was not quite so far-fetched and dearly bought, as that of his countryman, M. Dellon, who tells Mademoiselle de Coislin, that he thought all his sufferings in the Inquisition at Goa well-bestowed, since he could dedicate the history of them to her; but we can scarcely doubt that it was equally sincere.

(109.) In the Court of a realm thus fruitful with examples of grace and virtue, though abounding with so much licentious disorder and so many pernicious errors both of religion and government, did Gongora linger on. The throne had now passed to a boy of fifteen for Philip IV. had not completed his sixteenth year, when he began to reign. The burden of the state was reposed on the shoulders of the Count-Duke Olivares; with what result is sufficiently known in the history of Europe during this portion of the seventeenth century. These misfortunes of his country Gongora did not live to witness; but finding that the new minister, content with having disgraced his predecessors in office, was otherwise disposed to patronise literature and the fine arts, he continued to reside at Madrid, and employ his muse as he was solicited, or as occasions prompted. The Count-Duke, perhaps at

* Navarrete, Viages, 398.

+ Relation de la Inquisition de Goa. Paris, 1688.

his request, gave two habits of Santiago to two of his kinsmen; and if the poet had lived longer, says Hozes, he promised himself that the protection of this princely person would have provided him a more effectual shelter from adversity. It was, however, a relief that was too long in coming to a man who had now numbered threescore years.

Why did he remain, or how did he employ himself? It seems as if he had become by this time the centre of a literary circle at the Court, and the many titled and distinguished persons, who imitated his poetry, were resorting to him for lessons, and honouring him as their master. It seems also as if it had been about this time, when he first became remarkable for that new polished style, which has made his name so famous with later ages. There may be some indications of it in his earlier poems; but it was now that he wrote his "Solitudes," the most undeniable specimen of Culteranismo, which called forth the two letters of Lope de Vega, cited by later critics as the first authoritative censure of our poet pronounced by one of his own countrymen. To these letters we may refer hereafter, when we come to the critical portion of this Essay. At present our plan requires that we should give some account of the contemporary men of letters, who formed the school of Gongora.

(110.) Of these the most remarkable for wit and

* An honour coveted in Spain, as an attestation of purity of blood.