[33] The melancholy tone of Columbus's correspondence after the queen's death, shows too well the color of his fortunes and feelings. (Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. pp. 341 et seq.) The sentiments of the Great Captain were still more unequivocally expressed, according to Giovio. "Nec multis inde diebus Regina fato concessit, incredibili cum dolore atque jacturâ Consalvi; nam ab eâ tanquam alumnus, ac in ejus regiâ educatus, cuncta quae exoptari possent virtutis et dignitatis incrementa ademptum fuisse fatebatur, rege ipso quanquam minus benigno parumque liberali nunquam reginae voluntati reluctari anso. Id vero praeclare tanquam verissimum apparuit elatâ reginâ." Vitae Illust. Virorum, p. 275.
[34] The reader may recall a striking example of this, in the early part of her reign, in her great tenderness and forbearance towards the humors of Carillo, archbishop of Toledo, her quondam friend, but then her most implacable foe.
[35] Isabella at her brother's court might well have sat for the whole of Milton's beautiful portraiture.
"So dear to heaven is saintly chastity, That, when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her. Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, And, in clear dream and solemn vision. Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, Till oft converse with heavenly habitants Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, The unpolluted temple of the mind, And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, Till all be made immortal."
[36] "Era tanto," says L. Marineo, "el ardor y diligencia que tenia cerca el culto divino, que aunque de dia y de noche estava muy ocupada en grandes y arduos negocios de la governacion de muchos reynos y señorios, parescia que su vida era mas contemplativa que activa. Porque siempre se hallava presente a los divinos oficios y a la palabra de Dios. Era tanta su atencion que si alguno de los que celebravan o cantavan los psalmos, o otras cosas de la yglesia errava alguna dicion o syllaba, lo sintia y lo notava, y despues como maestro a discipulo se lo emendava y corregia. Acostumbrava cada dia dezir todas las horas canónicas demas de otras muchas votivas y extraordinarias devociones que tenia." Cosas Memorables, fol. 183.
[37] Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 1, cap. 4.--Lucio Marineo enumerates many of these splendid charities.--(Cosas Memorables, fol. 165.) See also the notices scattered over the Itinerary (Viaggio in Spagna) of Navagiero, who travelled through the country a few years after.
[38] The archbishop's letters are little better than a homily on the sins of dancing, feasting, dressing, and the like, garnished with scriptural allusions, and conveyed in a tone of sour rebuke, that would have done credit to the most canting Roundhead in Oliver Cromwell's court. The queen, far from taking exception at it, vindicates herself from the grave imputations with a degree of earnestness and simplicity, which may provoke a smile in the reader. "I am aware," she concludes, "that custom cannot make an action, bad in itself, good; but I wish your opinion, whether, under all the circumstances, these can be considered bad; that, if so, they may be discontinued in future." See this curious correspondence in Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 13.
[39] Such encomiums become still more striking in writers of sound and expansive views like Zurita and Blancas, who, although flourishing in a better instructed age, do not scruple to pronounce the Inquisition "the greatest evidence of her prudence and piety, whose uncommon utility, not only Spain, but all Christendom, freely acknowledged!" Blancas, Commentarii, p. 263.--Zurita, Anales, tom. v. lib. 1, cap. 6.
[40] Sismondi displays the mischievous influence of these theological dogmas in Italy, as well as Spain, under the pontificate of Alexander VI. and his immediate predecessors, in the 90th chapter of his eloquent and philosophical "Histoire des Républiques Italiennes."
[41] I borrow almost the words of Mr. Hallam, who, noticing the penal statutes against Catholics under Elizabeth, says, "They established a persecution, which fell not at all short in principle of that for which the Inquisition had become so odious." (Constitutional History of England, (Paris, 1827,) vol. i. chap. 3.) Even Lord Burleigh, commenting on the mode of examination adopted in certain cases by the High Commission court, does not hesitate to say, the interrogatories were "so curiously penned, so full of branches and circumstances, as he thought the inquisitors of Spain used not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their preys." Ibid., chap. 4.
[42] Even Milton, in his essay on the "Liberty of Unlicensed Printing," the most splendid argument, perhaps, the world had then witnessed in behalf of intellectual liberty, would exclude Popery from the benefits of toleration, as a religion which the public good required at all events to be extirpated. Such were the crude views of the rights of conscience entertained in the latter half of the seventeenth century, by one of those gifted minds, whose extraordinary elevation enabled it to catch and reflect back the coming light of knowledge, long before it had fallen on the rest of mankind.
[43] The most remarkable example of this, perhaps, occurred in the case of the wealthy Galician knight, Yañez de Lugo, who endeavored to purchase a pardon of the queen by the enormous bribe of 40,000 doblas of gold. The attempt failed, though warmly supported by some of the royal counsellors. The story is well vouched. Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 97.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 180.
[44] The reader may recollect a pertinent illustration of this, on the occasion of Ximenes's appointment to the primacy. See