Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/396

372 372 RISE OF XIMENES. PART II. The queen Ins executor. not have escaped so easily. And with good reason ; for the holy Gospel should be discreetly preached, ' cum grano salis,' that is to say, with the decorum and deference due to majesty and men of high estate. " ^ When cardinal Mendoza's illness assumed an alarming aspect, the court removed to the neigh- bourhood of Guadalaxara, where he was confined. The king and queen, especially the latter, with the affectionate concern which she manifested for more than one of her faithful subjects, used to visit him in person, testifying her sympathy for his sufferings, and benefiting by the lights of the sagacious mind, which had so long helped to guide her. She still further showed her regard for her old minister by condescending to accept the office of his executor, which she punctually discharged, superintending the disposition of his effects according to his testa- ment, ^ and particularly the erection of the stately hospital of Santa Cruz, before mentioned, not a stone of which was laid before his death. '' 5 Salazar de Mendoza, Cron. del Gran Cardenal, lib. 2, cap. 66. The doctor Pedro Salazar de Mendoza's biography of his illus- trious relative is a very fair speci- men of the Spanish style of book- making in ancient times. One event seems to suggest another with about as much cohesion as the rhymes of '* The House that Jack built." There is scarcely a place or personage of note, that the grand cardinal was brought in contact with in the course of his life, whose history is not made the theme of profuse dissertation. Nearly fif- ty chapters are taken up, for ex- ample, with the distinguished men. who graduated at the college of Santa Cruz. 6 " Non hoc," says Tacitus with truth, " praecipuum amicorum mu- nus est, prosequi defunctum ignavo questu : sed quae voluerit memi- nisse, quae mandaverit exsequi." Annales, lib. 2, sect. 71. 7 Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 143. — Carbajal, Anales, MS., aiio 1494. — Salazar de Men- doza, Cron. del Gran Cardenal, lib. 2, cap. 45. A foundling hospital does not seem to have come amiss in Spain, where, according to Salazar, the