Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/422

398 398 RISE OF XIMENES. PART II were less open to these influences ; and the work - of reform could only be accomplished there, by bringing them back to a reverence for their own institutions, and by the slow operation of public opinion. Notwithstanding the queen's most earnest wish- es, it may be doubted whether this would have ever been achieved without the cooperation of a man like Ximenes, whose character combined in itself all the essential elements of a reformer. Happily, Isabella was permitted to see before her death, if not the completion, at least the com- mencement, of a decided amendment in the morals of the religious orders ; an amendment, which, so far from being transitory in its character, calls forth the most emphatic eulogium from a Castilian writer far in the following century ; who, while he laments their ancient laxity, boldly challenges comparison for the religious communities of his own country, with those of any other, in temper- ance, chastity, and exemplary purity of life and conversation. ^^ 41 Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 23. Alvaro Go- mez, and biographers or Ximenes. The authority on whom the life of Cardinal Ximenes mainly rests, is Alvaro Gomez de Castro. He was born in the village of St. Eu- lalia, near Toledo, in 1515, and received his education at Alcali'v, where he obtained great repute for his critical acquaintance with the ancient classics. He was after- wards made professor of the hu- manities in the university ; a situ- ation which he filled with credit, but subsequently exchano-ed for the rhetorical chair in a school re- cently founded at Toledo. While thus occupied, he was chosen by the university of Alcala to pay the most distinguished honor, wiiich could be rendered to the memory of its illustrious founder, by a faith- ful record of his extraordinary life. The most authentic sources of in-