Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/215

189 HER CHARACTER. 189 in that unfeigned humility, which, although the chapter very essence of our faith, is so rarely found ; and - 1— most rarely in those, whose great powers and ex- alted stations seem to raise them above the level of ordinary mortals. A remarkable illustration of this is afforded in the queen's correspondence with Talavera, in which her meek and docile spirit is strikingly contrasted with the Puritanical intole- rance of her confessor.^^ Yet Talavera, as we have seen, was sincere, and benevolent at heart. Unfortunately, the royal conscience was at times committed to very different keeping ; and that hu- mility which, as we have repeatedly had occasion to notice, made her defer so reverentially to her ghostly advisers, led, under the fanatic Torquemada, the confessor of her early youth, to those deep blemishes on her administration, the establishment of the Inquisition, and the exile of the Jews. But, though blemishes of the deepest dye on her commons " i- •/ her age. administration, they are certainly not to be re- garded as such on her moral character. It will be difficult to condemn her, indeed, without condemn- 1, cap. 4. — Lucio Marineo enu- well's court. The queen, far from merates many of these splendid taking exception at it, vindicates charities. (Cosas Memorables, fol. herself from the grave imputations 165.) See also the notices scat- with a degree of earnestness and tered over the Itinerary (Viaggio simplicity, which may provoke a in Spagna) of Navagiero, who smile in the reader. "I am aware," travelled through the country a she concludes, " that custom cannot few years after. make an action, bad in itself, good ; 38 The archbishop's letters are but I wish your opinion, whether, little better than a homily on the under all the circumstances, these sins of dancing, feasting, dressing, can be considered bad ; that, if so, and the like, garnished with scrip- they may be discontinued in fu- tural allusions, and conveyed in a ture." See this curious corre- tone of sour rebuke, that would spondence in Mem. de la Acad, de have done credit to the most cant- Hist., torn. vi. Ilust. 13. ing Roundhead in Oliver Crom-