Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/317

293 EXPEDITION OF CHARLES VIll. 293 regard with the same insolent contempt, that the cuAiriia paladins of romance are made to feel for the un- '- — knightly rabble, myriads of whom they could over- turn wdth a single lance. But they felt serious alarm as they beheld the storm of war gathering from other quarters, — from Spain and Germany, in defiance of the treaties by which they had hoped to secure them. Charles saw the necessity of instant action. Two courses presented themselves ; either with a fixed salary, whose duty it should be to compile, from authen- tic sources, a faithful history of the monarchy. The talents and emi- nent quahfications of Zurita recom- mended him to this post, and he was raised to it by the unanimous consent of the legislature, in the following year, 1548. From this time he conscientiously devoted himself to the execution of his great task. He visited every part of his own country, as well as Sicily and Italy, for the purpose of collecting materials. The p ublic ar- chives, and every accessible source of information, were freely thrown open to his inspection, by order of the government ; and he returned from his literary pilgrimage with a large accumulation of rare and original documents. The first por- tion of his annals was published at Saragossa, in two volumes folio, 1562. The work was not com- pleted until nearly twenty years later, and the last two volumes were printed under his own eye at Saragossa, in 1580, a few months only before his death. This edition, being one of those used in the pres- ent history, is in large folio, fairly executed, with double columns on the page, in the fashion of most of the ancient Spanish historians. The whole work was again published, as before, at the expense of the state, in 1585, by his son, amended and somewhat enlarged, from the man- uscripts left by his father. Bouter- wek has fallen into the error of supposing, that no edition of Zuri- ta's Annals appeared till after the reign of Philip II., who died in 1592. (Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, band iii. p. 319.) No incidents worthy of note seem to have broken the peaceful tenor of Zurita's life ; which he termi- nated at Saragossa, in the sixty- eighth year of his age, in the mon- astery of Santa Engracia, to which he had retired during a temporary residence in the city, to superin- tend the publication of his Annals. His rich collection of books and manuscripts was left to the Car- thusian monastery of Aula Dei ; but, from accident or neglect, the greater part have long since per- ished. His remains were interred in the convent where he died, and a monument, bearing a modest in- scription, was erected over them by his son. The best monument of Zurita, however, is his Annals. They take up the history of Aragon from its first rise after the Arabic conquest, and continue it to the death of Fer- dinand the Catholic. The reign of this prince, as possessing the largest interest and importance, is expanded into two volumes folio ; being one third of the whole work. The minuteness of Zurita's in- vestigations has laid him open to the charge of prolixity, especially