Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/430

402 402 DEATH OF GONSALVO. PART 11. of the general security and prosperity they had en- joyed under his reign, seem willing to bury his frailties in his grave. ''^ While his own hereditary subjects, exulting with patriotic pride in the glory to which he had raised their petty state, and touched with grateful recollections of his mild, pa- ternal government, deplore his loss in strains of national sorrow, as the last of the revered line, who was to preside over the destinies of Aragon, as a separate and independent kingdom. ^^ testimony to his kingly qualities, in a letter written when the writer had no motive for flattery, after that monarch's death, to Charles V.'s physician. (Opus Epist,epist. 567.) Guicciardini, whose national preju- dices did not lie in this scale, com- prehends nearly as much in one brief sentence. "Re di eccellen- tissimo consiglio, e virtu, e nel quale, se fosse stato constante nelle promesse, no potresti facilmente riprendere cosa alcuna." (Istoria, torn. vi. lib. 12, p. 273.) See also Brantome, (Qi^uvres, tom. iv. disc. 5.) — Giovio, with scarcely more qualification. Hist, sui Temporis, lib. 16, p. 336.— Navagiero, Viag- gio, fol. 27, — et alios. 74 " Principe el mas seilalado," says the prince of the Castilian historians, in his pithy manner, " en valor y justicia y prudencia nue en muchos siglos Espafia tuvo. Tachas a nadie pueden faltar sea por la fragilidad propia, 6 por la malicia y envidia agena que comhate i)rincipalmente los altos lugares. Espejo sin duda por sns grandes virtudes en que todos los Principes dc Espana se deben mi- rar." (Mariana, Hist, de Espaila, torn. ix. p. 375, cap. ult.) See also a similar tribute to his deserts, with greater amplification, in Gari- bay, Compendio, tom. ii. lib. 20, cap. 24. — Gomez, De Rebus Ges- tis, fol. 148. — UUoa, Vita di Car- lo v., fol. 42. — Ferreras, Hist, d' Espagne, tom. ix. p. 426 et seq. — et plurimis auct. antiq. et recen- tibus. ■^s See the closing chapter of the great Aragonese annalist, who ter- minates his historic labors with the death of Ferdinand the Catholic. (Zurita, Anales, tom. vi. lib. 10, cap. 100.) I will cite only one ex- tract from the profuse panegyrics of the national writers ; which at- tests the veneration in which Fer- dinand's memory was held in Ara- gon. It is from one, whose pen is never prostituted to parasitical or party purposes, and whose judg- ment is usually as correct, as the expression of it is candid. " Quo plangore ac lamentatione universa civitas complebatur. Neque solum homines, sed ipsa tecta, et parietes urbis videbantur acerbum iliius, qui omnibus charissimus erat, interitum lugere. Et merito. Erat enim, ut scitis, excmplum prudentice ac fortitudinis : summa; in re domes- tica continentia> : eximiee in publica dignitatis : humanitatis pra'lerea, ac leporis admirabilis.***** Neque eos solum, sed omnes cert^ tanta amplectebatur bcnevolentia, ut in- terdum non nobis Rex, sed unius- cujusque nostrum genitor ac parens viderelur. Post ejus interitum om- nis nostra juventus languet, deliciis