Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/163

19 BIRTH OF ISABELLA. 19 ry,"^^ as he fondly styles her. Although born in chapter a middling condition of life, with humble prospects, ^ — he was early smitten with a love of letters ; and, after passing through the usual course of discipline at Salamanca, he repaired to Rome, where in the study of those immortal masters, whose writings had but recently revealed the full capacities of a modern idiom, he imbibed principles of taste, which gave a direction to his own genius, and, in some degree, to that of his countrymen. On his return to Spain, his literary merit soon attracted general admiration, and introduced him to the pat- ronage of the great, and above all to the friendship of the marquis of Santillana.^® He was admitted into the private circle of the monarch, who, as his gossiping physician informs us, " used to have Mena's verses lying on his table, as constantly as his prayer-book." The poet repaid the debt of gratitude by administering a due quantity of honeyed rhyme, for which the royal palate seems to have possessed a more than ordinary relish.^^ He con- tinued faithful to his master amidst all the fluctua- tions of faction, and survived him less than two years. He died in 1456 ; and his friend, the mar- quis of Santillana, raised a sumptuous monument over his remains, in commemoration of his virtues and of their mutual affection. John de Mena is affirmed by some of the na- hss mu- ence. tional critics to have given a new aspect to Castilian 27 " Flor de saber ycabelleria." ^ Cibdareal, Centon Epistolario, El Laberinto, copla 114. epist. 47, 49. 28 Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Ve- tus, torn. ii. pp. 265 et seq.