Part I. Chap. 11,

of this History.

[24] Mendez, Typographia Española, pp. 271, 272. In the second edition, published 1482, the author states, that no work of the time had a greater circulation, more than a thousand copies of it, at a high price, having been disposed of in the preceding year. Ibid., p. 237.

[25] Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, tom. i. pp. 132-139.--Lampillas, Letteratura Spagnuola, tom. ii. dis. 2, sec. 3.--Dialogo de las Lenguas, apud Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, (Madrid, 1737,) tom. ii. pp. 46, 47.

Lucio Marineo pays the following elegant compliment to this learned Spaniard, in his discourse before quoted. "Amisit nuper Hispania maximum sui cultorem in re litterariâ, Antonium Nebrissensem, qui primus ex Italiâ in Hispaniam Musas adduxit, quibuscum barbariem ex suâ patriâ fugavit, et Hispaniam totam linguae Latinae lectionibus illustravit." "Meruerat id," says Gomez de Castro of Lebrija, "et multo majora hominis eruditio, cui Hispania debet, quicquid habet bonarum literarum."

The acute author of the "Dialogo de las Lenguas," while he renders ample homage to Lebrija's Latin erudition, disputes his critical acquaintance with his own language, from his being a native of Andalusia, where the Castilian was not spoken with purity. "Hablaba y escrivia como en el Andalucia y no como en la Castilla." P. 92. See also pp. 9, 10, 46, 53.

[26] Barbosa, Bibliotheca Lusitana, (Lisboa Occidental, 1741,) tom. i. pp. 76-78.--Signorelli, Coltura nelle Sicilie, tom. iv. pp. 315-321.--Mayans y Siscar, Origenes, tom. i. p. 173.--Lampillas, Letteratura Spagnuola, tom. ii. dis. 2, sect. 5.--Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, tom. i. pp. 170, 171.

[27] Among these are particularly deserving of attention the brothers John and Francis Vergara, professors at Alcalá, the latter of whom was esteemed one of the most accomplished scholars of the age; Nuñez de Guzman, of the ancient house of that name, professor for many years at Salamanca and Alcalá, and the author of the Latin version in the famous Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes; he left behind him numerous works, especially commentaries on the classics; Olivario, whose curious erudition was abundantly exhibited in his illustrations of Cicero and other Latin authors; and lastly Vives, whose fame rather belongs to Europe than his own country, who, when only twenty-six years old, drew from Erasmus the encomium, that "there was scarcely any one of the age whom he could venture to compare with him in philosophy, eloquence, and liberal learning." But the most unequivocal testimony to the deep and various scholarship of the period is afforded by that stupendous literary work of Cardinal Ximenes, the Polyglot Bible, whose versions in the Greek, Latin, and Oriental tongues were collated, with a single exception, by Spanish scholars. Erasmus, Epistolae, lib. 19, epist. 101.--Lampillas, Letteratura Spagnuola, tom. ii. pp. 382-384, 495, 792-794; tom. ii. p. 208 et seq.-- Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 37.

[28] Erasmus, Epistolae, p. 977.

[29] "La muy esclarecida ciudad de Salamanca, madre de las artes liberales, y todas virtudes, y ansi de cavalleros como de letrados varones, muy ilustre." Cosas Memorables, fol. 11.--Chacon, Hist. de la Universidad de Salamanca, apud Semanario Erudito, tom. xviii. pp. 1-61.

[30] "Academia Complutensis," says Erasmus of this university, "non aliunde celebritatem nominis auspicata est quàm a complectendo linguae ac bonas literas. Cujus praecipuum oramentum est egregius ille senex, planéque dignus qui multos vincat Nestoras, Antonius Nebrissensis." Epist. ad Ludovicum Vivem, 1521. Epistolae, p. 755.

[31] Cosas Memorables, ubi supra.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 57.-- Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, lib. 4.--Chacon, Universidad de Salamanca, ubi supra.

It appears that the practice of scraping with the feet as an expression of disapprobation, familiar in our universities, is of venerable antiquity; for Martyr mentions, that he was saluted with it before finishing his discourse by one or two idle youths, dissatisfied with its length. The lecturer, however, seems to have given general satisfaction, for he was escorted back in triumph to his lodgings, to use his own language, "like a victor in the Olympic games," after the conclusion of the exercise.

[32] For some remarks on the labors of this distinguished jurisconsult, see