Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/101

77 SIEGE OF BAZA. 77 The attachment to Isabella seemed to be a per- vading principle, which animated the whole nation bj one common impulse, impressing a unity of de- sign on all its movements. This attachment was imputable to her sex as well as character. The sympathy and tender care, with which she regarded her people, naturally raised a reciprocal sentiment in their bosoms. But, when they beheld her direct- ing their counsels, sharing their fatigues and dan- gers, and displaying all the comprehensive intel- lectual powers of the other sex, they looked up to her as to some superior being, with feelings far Padre y Siervo de Dios, F. Fran- cisco Ximenez de Cisneros, (Pa- lermo, 1653,) Archivo, p.4.) This account of the precipitate manner in which the epistles were com- posed, may help to explain the cause of the occasional inconsist- encies and anachronisms, that are to be found in them ; and which their author, had he been more pa- tient of the labor of revision, would doubtless have corrected. But he seems to have had little relish for this, even in his more elaborate works, composed with a view to publication. (See his own honest confessions in his book " De Re- bus Oceanicis," dec. 8, cap. 8, 9.) After all, the errors, such as they are, in his Epistles, may probably be chiefly charg-ed on the publisher. The first edition appeared at Al- cala de Henares, in 1530, about four years after the author's death. It has now become exceedingly rare. The second and last, being the one used in the present Histo- ry, came out in a more beautiful form from the Elzevir press, Am- sterdam, in 1670, folio. Of this also but a small number of copies were struck off. The learned edi- tor takes much credit to himself for having purified the work from many errors, which had flowed from the heedlessness of his pre- decessor. It will not be diflicult to detect several yet remaining. Such, for example, as a memora- ble letter on the lues venerea (No. 68.) obviously misplaced, even ac- cording to its own date ; and that numbered 168, in which two let- ters are evidently blended into one. But it is unnecessary to multiply examples. — It is very desirable, that an edition of this valuable cor- respondence should be published, under the care of some one quali- fied to illustrate it by his intimacy with the history of the period, as well as to correct the various inac- curacies which have crept into it, whether through the carelessness of the author or of his editors. I have been led into this length of remark by some strictures which met my eye in the recent work of Mr. Hallam ; who intimates his belief, that the Epistles of Martyr, instead of being written at their respective dates, were produced by him at some later period ; (Intro- duction to the Literature of Eu- rope, (London, 1837.) vol. i. pp. 439-441;) a conclusion which I