provinces of Spain and Portugal, from Majorca, the Canaries, and the West Indies, New Spain, and Peru; and no small number from remote dominions, as I myself can attest, having been for many years an eye-witness at Salamanca. There are always French students there from the meridian of Paris, a few Flemings, and many Italians. There are many from England, and many from Ireland, even in these years, when these kingdoms are lost to us, having no commerce or treaty with Spain."* The poverty of a large proportion of these students, "their want of shirts, and no superabundance of shoes,” is amusingly described by Cervantes; but there were in those days also prizes worth the seeking, preferments which converted their hungry fare into plenty, and their beds of rushes into holland sheets and damask coverlets. It seems to have been the custom for young noblemen and gentlemen at this period, as it was also formerly at Oxford, to go up attended by their foster-brothers, or sons of old tenants and domestics; and these poor followers often became fellow-students with their masters.†

The mirthful spirit of youth is not easily checked by adverse fortune. When the ceremony of conferring degrees was to be enacted, the public orator, called by the cant term of El Gallo, or the crowing cock, presented the candidates in a commendatory speech

* Pedro de Medina y Diego de Mesa, Grandezas de España, 1605. Ponz, Viage de España, xii. 202.

† Don Quixote, p. i. c. 37. El Licenciado Vidriera, init.

of burlesque character, suggested by the name, personal appearance, or other peculiarity of the individual, for the amusement of the juniors. Royalty was sometimes present at these free and easy festivities.* Gongora has a poetical address of this kind among his ludicrous poems, which seems to have been composed, and may have been recited, at the graduation of a little doctor of divinity, "with a squint in his serene eyes," whom he accuses of preaching Italian nonsense in his sermons.t

It is painful to contemplate the decline of this old abode of learning. In 1785 the number of students, according to Townsend, including the Irish College, had fallen to 1909.‡ A Spanish account a few years later describes a still greater depression and impoverishment.§ And since the destruction perpetrated by the French in the Peninsular War, who left only three of the twenty-five colleges standing, there has been no effectual effort to revive the studies of the place. The landed endowments of the University, confiscated by order of Napoleon, have only in scanty measure been restored. The students, a few years ago, were no more than 400 in arts, and about 75 in theology, taught by some fourteen professors. There is also a Normal School for training Masters of Elementary

? Ponz, xii. 293, says the whole population in 1788 was 2800.

Instruction, which at the same period contained about 40 pupils.* Such is the melancholy aspect of the decayed sister of Oxford, Paris, and Bologna, over whose ruins the shade of the beneficent Alfonso the Wise might weep, and from whose dust we must pray that a voice will yet go forth reviving the memory of Nebrixa, Ximenoz, Arias Montano, Antonio Agustin, Melchior Cano, and a crowd of other worthies, whose names should stamp it with the veneration due to holy ground.

(6.) "Among all his fellow-students," says Hozes, "Don Lewis was acknowledged as the first, gazed on and admired as a kind of Saul among the studious crowd, overtopping them all by the head and shoulders." The allusion seems to suggest, what may be inferred from other literary notices, that the poet was tall of stature. Lope de Vega, perhaps for the same reason, calls him "the Andalusian giant."+ His portrait in the Royal Gallery at Madrid, painted by Velasquez in one of the later years of his life, gives the impression of a large robust person; and Sedano seems to speak as if he had this portrait in view, when he says that he was of a venerable and grave aspect, strongly formed, and somewhat above the middle size. §

His time at Salamanca, however, was not much

* Madoz. Dicc. Geogr. Hist. xiii. 660.

In his "Laurel de Apolo."

The portrait is numbered 527 in the Catalogue of the Madrid Museo, 1850. ? Pref. to Parnaso Español, vii. xvi.

devoted to the studies of the law, or to prepare himself, according to his father's wishes, for the practice of an advocate. His genius did not incline that way; or, as Hozes tells us, in a phrase apparently wellchosen, "he was genially disinclined to it." Instead of qualifying himself to defend clients, he became himself a client of the Muses. "These," says his biographer, "were the sweet, but dangerous, years of his life the merry grace-cups, which he drank to them in unfettered numbers, were sometimes so highly seasoned, as to be too strong for a healthful relish, like piquant sauce that burns in the mouth." His studies at Salamanca therefore were probably like Dryden's at Cambridge, such as to make him a proficient in classic poetry, but not such as to check a propensity for the gaieties of the student's life. Several of his most lively poems are said to have been composed at the University: but these it is not now easy to distinguish from the rest, unless it be the sally on the Don or Doctor above mentioned. There is also a sonnet which speaks of a strange attack of illness suffered there. He remained for three days in a state of insensibility, and his friends began to account him dead but he recovered, and it had little effect in sobering the tone of his youthful spirit. A more grateful sonnet written on the same occasion, records his obligation to Geronymo Manrique, Bishop of Salamanca, and Bishop Elect of Cordova, at whose palace he was nursed during his sickness.

(7.) He seems to have left Salamanca without taking any degree of Licentiate or Doctor, or winning his title to the tuft-white, green, crimson, or bluewith which the graduates in the sciences were decorated. Few particulars are known of the next twenty years of his life. Mr. Ticknor has pointed out that he was noticed by Cervantes in his "Galatea" as early as the year 1584,* when he was no more than twenty-three years old, as even then a known author; and the notice is made with some discrimination in its terms, calling him "a rare lively genius," and one "whose knowledge was profound." His usual residence during this period was near Cordova; and he speaks in one or two of his poems as if he had succeeded to some patrimonial property-a house with a pleasant garden and orange-grove, and a murmuring stream flowing by. There can be little doubt that he associated with persons of distinction in the city and province, and was acceptable to learned bishops and other churchmen, as well as to nobles and gentlemen in the neighbourhood. There is no information, beyond the internal evidence of some of his poems, about any love-scenes, or attachment to any of the fair sex, which may have occurred in this early portion of his life: but it looks as if he had been at one time an admirer of Louisa de Cardona, a young lady of Valencia, who died at an early age, after becoming a nun in the convent of Santa Fé at Toledo; and perhaps after* Lib. vi. p. 294, ed. 1736.