HERNAN GOMEZ DE CIBDADREAL.

1388-1457.

For the reason given in the case of Martinez de Toledo, it has been supposed that the birthplace of this famous writer was Cibdadreal, the capital of La Mancha; but Ochoa rather imagines that he was born about the Castilian court-Lopez de Ayala, the high chancellor and chronicler, having certainly been his godfather. Having taken the degree of bachelor in medicine at the age of twenty-four, he became physician to John II., to whom he was much indebted, as he was also to the favourite minister, the unfortunate Alvaro de Luna. Neither in his own age is there any mention of the life and writings of this bachelor, nor should we even now have had any record of his existence, had not his letters been printed at Burgos in 1499,* under the title of 'A Hundred Letters of the Bachelor Hernan Gomez de Cibdadreal, Physician of the very Powerful and Sublime King Don John, the Second of this Name.' This collection had become very rare, when the learned Don Eugenio Llaguno y Amirola published a new edition, corrected and illustrated. There are one hundred and five of these letters, and they are valuable as containing the secret history of the author's times. It was a turbulent and calamitous age, and yet one of the most interesting in Spanish history, on account of the great number of illustrious persons who figured in it.

Letter LXXXIX., to Don Juan de Zerezuela, Archbishop of Toledo,

dated 1441.

The

'Sentence has been passed against the Constable. grandees cannot tolerate a rival of the king; and Count de Castro, who is his determined enemy, since the governor Pedro Manrique died, is now with great eagerness treating of a match between the king of Navarre and the Admiral's daughter: and also of one between the Infant Don Henrique and the sister of the Count of Benavente; for it is deemed good policy to unite these grandees closely, in order that the party who seek the destruction of the Constable may not be overpowered. You are wise, and will give these matters due consideration. I say to you that the Constable ought to do as the clown who could not pull the tail out of the horse all at once, but hair by hair he plucked it out without trouble.

There are grave reasons for believing that these letters were but a forgery, however talented and agreeable, and it is by some considered doubtful whether such a person as Cibdadreal had any existence.

† Madrid, 1765.

I am not much annoyed by any of these things, but adroitly manage every one.....

This has been selected as a fair specimen of the style and tone of our author. He manifests the wary doctor throughout, while abundantly supplying his correspondents with gossip that favourite commodity, which has never somehow been retailed in quantities so small that the scruple is required in weighing it.

MOSEN DIEGO DE VALERA.
1402-1487.

The city of Cuenca was the native place of the stanch and circumspect Cavalier Diego de Valera, and the year 1402 was that of his birth. He was brought up from infancy in the court of John II. of Castile, where, in the capacity of page to Prince Henry, he served in the palace, and received his education. Desirous of exercising his courage, and attaining accomplishments of a kind which could not be acquired in the listless and uniform life of a courtier, he left Spain, and travelled over a great part of Europe, observing in its different courts whatever seemed worthy of attention. He first visited France, when Charles VII. was the reigning monarch. Thence he passed to Vienna, then the court of Duke Albert of Austria, with whom he had the honour of supping. On this occasion he had the fortitude to repel, both with vigour and judgment, an expression which, over the table, was uttered by an Austrian magnate in contempt of the royal standard of Castile, for which noble and chivalrous conduct King John, soon after hearing of it, honoured him with the title of Mosen (Mr), to denote peculiar personal distinction. In the same year, which was 1436, Valera followed the army of Duke Albert, in which he served as an adventurer in the war against Bohemia. Having returned to his own country in 1440, and the fame of his valour and dexterity in arms having placed him among the bravest Spaniards of his time, King John selected him as his champion against Pierre Chérnoy, a vassal of the Duke of Burgundy, who had challenged to single combat, according to the custom of that age. He was afterwards found at Cuenca, where he was probably living in retirement, and received a secret commission from the king to pass over to the court of France, and negotiate his marriage with a daughter of Charles VII. Besides this confidential embassy, he fulfilled with success several other honourable commissions at the courts of England, Burgundy, and Hungary.

After the completion of these journeys, which did not occupy any great space of time, nothing is known of the life and employments of Valera till the year 1448, when he was nominated procurator of the city of Cuenca by the Cortés which King John convoked at Tordesillas. In this assembly he distinguished himself by the cool courage with which he opposed the bloody designs, suggested by the king, for reducing the rebellious grandees with fire and sword. Valera advised measures of peace and clemency, and offered strong arguments against these destructive measures, which the other procurators, either through fear or flattery, had seemed to approve. And so far was he from fearing the anger or vengeance of the Constable, Don Alvaro de Luna, the cause of these discontents, that he afterwards reiterated his pacific counsels in two letters to the king, in which he adduced various maxims and examples against the effusion of human blood. Besides the respect which his patriotic zeal commanded, he had on this delicate occasion considerable protection from the position he held in the service of Don Pedro de Stuñiga (Zuñiga), Count of Placencia, who, confiding in his superior endowments and tried prudence, had intrusted to him the education of his nephew and heir.

As soon as their Catholic Majesties came to the throne, Mosen Diego de Valera was deemed a suitable person to act as their chronicler and counsellor; and soon afterwards he received the further honour of being nominated high chamberlain. The wisdom and valour of this politic diplomatist and redoubtable cavalier procured for him immortal fame among the illustrious persons who flourished in Spain in the fifteenth century. His lengthened life included three reigns, in which he was eye-witness of the varied events of those stormy times. In his capacity of royal historiographer he composed the Abbreviated Chronicle of Spain,' dedicated to the queen. This work was finished in the year 1481, being the seventy-ninth of his own age. He survived its completion but a very short time.*

This narrative displays extensive reading, without criticism, selection, or solidity. It is succinct and meagre enough till it reaches the reigns of Henry III. and John II., where we find much more substance and truthfulness. The style, however, is dry, tedious, and slovenly, offering no passage which seems worthy of selection and translation. But the author has fortunately inserted in his chronicle the two letters above-mentioned, which he addressed to the king, to warn him of the inevitable ruin that would fall upon his vassals should he persevere in gratifying his rage, and endeavouring to conquer the malcontent grandees by

*This compilation was first printed at Saragossa in 1494; second, at Salamanca, in 1499; and third and fourth, at Seville in 1534 and 1567 respectively.

force of arms. These letters are both written in a grave, precise, and sententious style, and in a frank and independent tone, sustained by a generally-elevated diction, and occasionally enlivened with beautiful similes, or strengthened by the exhibition of melancholy pictures, which, notwithstanding their somewhat studied appearance, prove that Valera could feel as well as think, and paint what he felt.

Letter of Mosen Diego de Valera to King John II. of Castile. (Dated at Segovia.)

'MOST POTENT SOVEREIGN-Your realms are in such a state of anxiety, distress, and turmoil as I need not describe, since it is sufficiently known to your majesty. And now it is more necessary to seek a remedy than to deplore and talk of our misfortunes; and doubtless, after God, in you alone have we hope. Oh, my lord, let not, then, our hope be vain, and let peace be made by your decree! Use now your great power to this end, and thus you will secure greater glory than any prince in the world ever attained. This may be done, my liege, by putting all actions in a just balance-laying aside partiality and favouritism, whence necessarily flows so much discord among your subjects. By you alone can these evils be repaired, and they be restored to peace; and though it appears difficult to some, yet to me it appears very light and easy, if you only will it, because you are sovereign lord, as well of one party as of the other.

'Call to recollection, my lord, that you are king; and look well to it as your peculiar office, since, if properly understood, to govern well is more a burden, I assure you, than a pleasure, which certainly the Persian king, whom Valerius mentions, well understood-who, taking the crown into his hands on the day of his coronation, and viewing it with much attention, said, “Oh precious joy, only when fortunate! Who can thoroughly understand the great anxieties that are concealed under thee! If I might have found thee on the ground, I would not have lifted thee!" In like manner oughtest thou to examine how thou rulest for God in the earth, whom thou shouldest much resemble. HE who, with restless thirst and ardent desire for human safety suffered so many injuries, and even endured a painful death. It is no wonder if you, who have such authority in the world, should suffer some trouble or anguish for the salvation of your people, for all these things are incident to power and rule. And fortune frees no one from accident or wound, from him who holds the most exalted seat, and dresses in purple and gold, to him who sits on the ground, and covers his nakedness with unbleached linen.

'Your majesty should likewise remember that among other magnific titles, kings are called FATHERS of the nation. This is in order that they may know the nature of the power given to them, and that they may understand how to use it aright; resembling good

fathers, who at times chastise their beloved sons with words, at other times with stripes, but very seldom does it happen that they slay them, unless constrained by extreme necessity. And just in such a light ought you to look upon princes and subjects so closely united. You are in such a relation to each other as the various members of the human body; and just as no member of the body can be injured without pain and injury to all its other members, in like manner can no subject be destroyed without great loss and injury to the prince. Then look at your majesty. If things go on as they have begun, how many members must be cut off? And these being cut off, oh tell me, my liege, in what condition will they leave the head?'.

The other work of this author which claims our attention is his "Treatise concerning Providence as Opposed to Fortune;' a short discourse of eight pages quarto, 'composed for the reading, regulation, and counsel of Don Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena.' There is nothing new in the ideas, but the advices contained in this politico-moral treatise have some originality. The diction throughout is more frigid and surcharged with authorities than that of the letters. When we take into account that, both in the chronicle and in the treatise, Valera was coolly putting truths together on paper, without any exciting object in view, but that in his letters he was powerfully agitated by the fear of threatened calamities, and stimulated by love and compassion to his fellowcountrymen, to use his utmost effort to avert the evil, we cease to wonder at finding some compositions so tame, and others so spirited, proceeding from the same pen.

ALPHONSO DE LA TORRE.

Flourished about 1440.

Nothing is known with certainty of the lineage, birth, death, studies, or employments of this writer. He flourished about the middle of the reign of John II. of Castile, and probably resided at the court of John I. of Navarre, afterwards king of Arragon also. His writings announce that he was a bachelor, being content with this lower degree of the university according to the custom of the time. From the nature of his writings, it is likely that his bachelorate was connected with philosophy or jurisprudence rather than with any other faculty. The estimation in which he was held at the court of Navarre led to his receiving a commission to compose a philosophical treatise on moral and political subjects for the instruction and amusement of the Prince Don Carlos, heir