accredited popular tales, and sometimes given implicit belief to the impudent fabrications of interested priests and lying monks, there are Spanish historians and antiquaries who have manifested the greatest critical acuteness, and the soundest judgement, when their minds were not biassed by prepossessions, which they would have thought it impious to doubt, and which it might actually have. been dangerous for them to have called in question. Florez is an example of this, one of those quiet and and happy-minded men, who, by their patient and useful literary labours, have made some amends to society for the evil connected with the continuance of the monastic orders. Ambrosio de Morales is an earlier and more illustrious instance. He was the Leland of Spain, but happier in this respect than Leland, that he lived to make use of the materials which he collected, and brought down the history of his native country from the earliest times, to the middle of the eleventh century, with a fidelity and industry which have never been surpassed.

The portrait of Ambrosio de Morales, (first published by Florez with his Viage Santo, and afterwards prefixed to the collective edition of his works,) is one of the most characteristic that has ever been engraved. It represents him in his priest's dress, with a pen in his hand, and spectacles astride his ear; the head, which is perfectly bald, inclined a little on one side, and the eyes raised with an air of anxious thoughtfulness; but the intellectual is less remarkable than the physical expression, “porque en su fisonomia se conservan vestigios nada equivocos del defecto que padecia Morales, y en que le habia hecho caer su excesivo y inconsiderado zelo en conservar la pureza virginal." These are the words of his last editor. Morales had been a fanatic in his youth. He was educated for the clerical profession, and at the age of nineteen entered the Jeronimite Order. Having incurred an obligation which is opposed to the intention of nature, and consequently cannot have been enjoined by the revealed will of the Creator; he rendered it impossible for him to break his vow, by a desperate act of madness, which would have qualified him for a priest of Cybele, had he lived under a pagan instead of Papal superstition. This was early enough in life for the effects to be strongly marked in his countenance; the change produced in his moral and intellectual nature was from burning fanaticism to a sober but earnest bigotry. The pleasure which as a special devotee of St. Dominic (whom of all saints in the calendar he had chosen as his favourite), he might else have taken in making new martyrs, was innocently derived from hunting out the relics of old ones, visiting their shrines, restoring their worship, and investigating with pious zeal their history, legendary or real. Such

researches were connected with his pursuits as Royal Chronicler to Philip II.; and that king sent him through Leon, Galicia, and Asturias, to examine the state of the relics, archives, libraries, and royal monuments in those provinces. There is perhaps no other historian whose personal character is so distinctly and yet so naturally developed in his works, and this gives them a peculiar interest. You smile at his credulity, you wonder at his weakness, and sometimes pity his prostration of mind; but you become acquainted with Morales, and like him at last the better for foibles which individualize him, detract nothing from his real worth, and even afford the most complete evidence of his scrupulous veracity. Whenever such a history of Spain shall be composed, as may leave no wish of the judicious reader unsatisfied, the author of that history will be more indebted to Morales than to any other of his predecessors.

The order which he pursued was that of the kings of Castille and Leon, in which kingdoms the other principalities and monarchies of the peninsula, had in his days, been all absorbed. A general history of Spain, in which the different kingdoms are separately treated, was composed by his contemporary, Estevan de Garibay y Zamalloa. It has been erroneously said that, Garibay as well as Mariana, was much beholden to Morales,- for Garibay's work was published first; they had both pursued the same course of research, among the archives, and the deeds and charters of the monasteries; and subsequent writers, as well as Morales himself, have borne testimony to the diligence with which Garibay consulted these documents, and the fidelity with which he has used them. There is a curious instance of simplicity in the dedication of his labours to Philip II. He, who with unweariable industry had written four large and full folios, could not conceive that any person should think it an arduous undertaking to read them; and therefore with the confidence of a simple heart, he requests the king to bestow some portion of the little leisure which his great and numerous affairs allowed, in the perusal of this history; or at least, that he would be pleased to look at it in those intervals of business when he called for a book.*

Though the struggle with the Moors forms the principal matter of Spanish history, from the conquest down to the age of

"Esto pues suplico a V. Magestade, que algunos ratos de los pocos, que de tanta copia y excessivo numero de negocios continuos le restaren, quiera hazer me mercedes, en leer esta Chronica, recibiendola con la Real benignidad que de V. M. espero: a la menos la quiera ver en aquellos pocos espacios, quando por major y mejor expedicion de negocios trasladandose a algunas partes no remotas de su Real casa y corte, y pede V. M. concluydos los negocios, le den algun libro, y a vezes qualquiera que mas a mano se hallare, como me consta de relaciones de criados suyos, fide dignos."

Ferdinand and Isabella, Garibay nevertheless has treated of the Moorish transactions in a separate portion of his work. Neither he nor Morales had any knowledge of Arabic. The Moorish part of their materials therefore was wholly derived from the Archbishop Rodrigo, and from an early translation of Rasis. In the next generation a chronicle of the Moors in Spain was published by Fr. Jayme Bleda, one of the fiercest bigots that ever inculcated from the press and the pulpit the duty of persecution. He claimed the merit of having exerted himself with greater zeal and success than any other person, in bringing about the expulsion of the Moriscoes; and the large portion of his work which relates to that dreadful measure, is truly valuable; in the other parts he has either followed his predecessors, or adopted in preference the fabrications of Miguel de. Luna. For though Bleda was stationed for some years among the Moriscoes, to forward their conversion, it does not appear that his knowledge of their language extended beyond some acquaintance with the mixed speech which he could not help acquiring, and which at that time was more Spanish than Arabic; and if he made any search for their books, it would have been only for the purpose of destroying them as heretical and impious. Of the other writers who have undertaken a general history of Spain, Mariana contented himself with presenting in a popular form, the materials which he found in Morales, Garibay, the chronicles, and the provincial histories. Ferreras was a more laborious and critical writer; but he also was unacquainted with Arabic. The importance of that language in all historical researches concerning the chivalrous age of Spain was strangely overlooked by all the Spanish historians, from the time of Archbishop Rodrigo Ximenes, till Señor Conde made it the business of his life. Yet the Archbishop had led the way in which they ought to have trod; and another example was afforded them by Joam de Barros, who in his history of Portugueze Asia, made use both of Arabic and Persian authorities. It is likely that in composing his Europa Portugueza, he had recourse to Moorish documents; but that work, with many others of this great man, has unfortunately been lost.

Señor Conde observes, that impartiality is of all requisites for an historian the most essential; it is however evident, in his preface, that during the long attention which he has bestowed upon this branch of Spanish history, the Moors have found favour in his eyes. He represents their conquest of Spain almost as a blessing to the conquered people. The conditions which they imposed," he says, were such, that the people felt them as a benefit instead of an oppression, and when they compared their

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condition with what it previously had been, they thought themselves fortunate. The free exercise of their religion, the preservation of their churches, and the security of their persons, goods, and chattels, compensated for the submission and the tribute which the conquerors required." If this author had been asked in what respect the Wisigoths found the exercise of their religion more free, their places of worship better preserved, and their persons and property more secure under the Moors, than under their own kings and their own laws, he would have found it difficult to explain or justify the inconsiderate assertion. There were in Spain certain classes and certain parties, to whom the conquest afforded either relief, or, what to some of them was more gratifying, revenge. Among the latter were the members and partizans of a depressed dynasty, as also Count Julian and his friends, by which parties: the invasion was invited and assisted. Among the former were the Arians, the Jews, who had been most inhumanly persecuted, and the slaves, who, if their condition may be estimated by the laws concerning them, were in a miserable state of helpless and unprotected servitude. But the great body of the people had no motive for desiring a change which brought to them no possible advantage. Neither was there any thing in the manner or consequences of that change which might reconcile them to the loss of their privileges, and of their very name as a nation. They were free as well as independent under the Gothic kings, whose government was so little oppressive, where there was no mistaken principle of religion to render it so, that the Romanized inhabitants of Spain preferred their dominion to that of the Romans; a decisive fact, for which there is the contemporary authority of Orosius. But that the yoke of the Moors was not easy, nor their burthen light, appears (if new proof were needed) from Conde's own relation, where it is stated, that before the conquest, many African Christians migrated into Spain, rather than continue in Africa under the Mahommedans.

The Moors who entered Spain were in a very different state of civilization from that which their descendants attained in the splendid ages of Cordoba and Granada. With all the enthusiasm they retained much of the barbarity that characterized the first propagators of Islam, from whom, indeed, they were only in the second generation. But in their arms they are said, by Conde's Arabic authorities, to have had an advantage over the Wisigoths, which compensated, in the first battles, for their great inferiority in numbers. This is remarkable; for the Spanish sword, which the Romans had condescended to adopt, and which in early times was celebrated for its temper, might have been thought as efficient in action as the best scimitar of Damascus; and the ar

mourer's craft is one, which, as it can never fall into disuse in warlike ages, is not likely to have partaken in the decline of the arts. Here, however, it is affirmed, that the main body of Roderick's army had no other defensive armour than the shield. The sling also is mentioned among their weapons; this is more likely to have been retained by the Spanish population, than introduced or adopted, either by the Romans, or by any of the northern nations. The account which Muza gave the Caliph of the people whom he had conquered, was, that they were lions in their strong holds, eagles on horseback, and women when in their ranks on foot; but that if they saw an opportunity, they knew how to profit by it, and when defeated, they were goats in flying to the mountains. Yet the Moorish writer describes the battle of Guadalete as being terrible as the day of judgment, and lasting three days, the furnace of the combat continuing to burn and rage from day-break till night. They had never, Muza said, made one of his standards retreat, and his Mussulmen had never hesitated to attack double their own number.

It was in that confidence that the invasion had been undertaken, for the Mahommedan armies as yet had gone on from victory to victory, conquering, and, as they believed, still to conquer. The Caliph, when he approved of the undertaking, said, that among the traditions which had been handed down to him from the Prophet, was a promise of the extension of his law into the farthest west, and its establishment by conquest in the uttermost parts of the earth. This was one of that class of prophecies which tend to bring about their own fulfilment; and if having thus fixed themselves in Europe, they had pursued their enterprize with undiminished ardour, there was nothing beyond the Pyrenees which could then have opposed a successful resistance. But the leaders were like Buonaparte's generals in the same country eleven centuries afterwards; they were jealous of each other: there was no agreement in their views, and the main object of each was to secure for himself as large a portion of the plunder as he could get together. Muza is represented as the most rapacious. He sent to Damascus a head which was said to be Roderick's, preserved in camphor; for the Moorish writer says, that Roderick was slain in the action by Tarik, with a spear, and observes, that such is the fate of kings who make themselves conspicuous in battle. And when Muza was recalled to Syria himself, he is said to have taken with him four hundred males of royal family from Spain, all wearing crowns of gold, and golden girdles. This has an air of fiction, like the story that in an apartment in the palace of Toledo they found the crowns of all the deceased kings, four and twenty in number, each adorned with precious stones, and inscribed with