Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/425

397 DEATH AND CHARACTER OF FERDINAND. 397 if the latter has escaped the reproach of the usur- chapter XXIV. pation of Navarre, it was because the premature — — '— death of his general deprived him of the pretext and means for achieving it. Yet Louis the Twelfth, the " father of his people," has gone down to pos- terity with a high and honorable reputation." Ferdinand, unfortunately for his popularity, had Hisinsens,- nothing of the frank and cordial temper, the genial expansion of the soul, which begets love. He car- ried the same cautious and impenetrable frigidity in- to private life, that he showed in public. " No one," says a writer of the time, " could read his thoughts by any change of his countenance." " Calm and calculating, even in trifles, it was too obvious that every thing had exclusive reference to self. He seemed to estimate his friends only by the amount of services they could render him. He was not always mindful of these services. Witness his un- generous treatment of Columbus, the Great Cap- tain, Navarro, Ximenes, — the men who shed the brightest lustre, and the most substantial benefits, on his reign. Witness also his insensibility to the virtues and long attachment of Isabella, whose memory he could so soon dishonor by a union with one every way unworthy to be her successor. 64 Read the honeyed panegyrics mondi is the only writer in the of Seyssel, St. Gelais, Voltaire French language, that has come even, to say nothing of Gaillard, under my notice, who has weighed Varillas, e tutti quanti, undiluted the deserts of Louis XII. in the by scarce a drop of censure. Rare historic balance with impartiality indeed is it to find one so imbued and candor. And Sismondi is not with the spirit of philosophy, as to a Frenchman, raise himself above the local or na- 65 Giovio, Hist, sui Temporis, tional prejudices which pass for lib. 16, p. 335. patriotism with the vulgar. Sis-