Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/209

185 CLASSICAL LEARNING. — SCIENCE. 185 down to the period at which we have arrived, but chapter through the whole of Isabella's reign, in order to ^- exhibit as far as possible its entire results, at a single glance, to the eye of the reader. We have beheld, in a preceding chapter, the auspicious literary promise afforded by the reign of Isabella's father, John the Second, of Castile. Un- der the anarchical sway of his son, Henry the Fourth, the court, as we have seen, was abandoned to un- bounded license, and the whole nation sunk into a mental torpor, from which it was roused only by the tumults of civil war. In this deplorable state of things, the few blossoms of literature, which had begun to open under the benign influence of the preceding reign, were speedily trampled under foot, and every vestige of civilization seemed in a fair way to be effaced from the land. The first years of Ferdinand and Isabella's gov- Ferdinand's J o education ernment were too much clouded by civil dissen- ''^siected. sions, to afford a much more cheering prospect. Ferdinand's early education, moreover, had been greatly neglected. Before the age of ten, he was called to take part in the Catalan wars. His boy- hood was spent among soldiers, in camps instead of schools, and the wisdom which he so eminently displayed in later life, was drawn far more from his own resources, than from books. ^ Isabella was reared under more favorable auspi- instruction ^ of Isabella ces ; at least more favorable to mental culture. She was allowed to pass her youth in retirement, 1 L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 153. VOL. II. 24