Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/144

120 120 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. PART and indeed the engrossing character of this domes- ~ — tic conquest left them little leisure for indulging in dreams of distant and doubtful discovery. Colum- bus, moreover, was unfortunate in his first channel of communication with the court. He was furnish- ed by Fray Juan Perez de Marchena, guardian of the convent of La Rabida in Andalusia, who had early taken a deep interest in his plans, with an in- troduction to Fernando de Talavera, prior of Prado, and confessor of the queen, a person high in the royal confidence, and gradually raised through a succession of ecclesiastical dignities to the archi- episcopal see of Granada. He was a man of ir- reproachable morals, and of comprehensive bene- volence for that day, as is shown in his subsequent treatment of the unfortunate Moriscoes. ^^ He was also learned ; although his learning was that of the cloister, deeply tinctured with pedantry and super- stition, and debased by such servile deference even to the errors of antiquity, as at once led him to discountenance every thing like innovation or en- terprise. ^^ Tieferredtoa With thcsc timid and exclusive views, Talavera roiincil. ' was so far from comprehending the vast concep- tions of Columbus, that he seems to have regarded him as a mere visionary, and his hypothesis as in- ^4 Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., MuHoz postpones his advent to dial, de Talavera. Spain to 1485, on the supposition 15 Salazar de Mendoza, Cron. that he olTered his services to Ge- del Gran Cardenal, p. 214. — Her- noa immediately after this rupture rera, Indias Occidentales, torn. i. with Portugal. Hist, del Nuevo- dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8. — Fernando Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 21. Colon, Hist, del Almiranle, cap. 11.