Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/586

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. m. JC*K a*, MOS.

to the possessors of all Grandeeships to style them "of the first class," it is certain that only those descended from the dignitaries recognized by Charles V., in 1520, are really qualified to do so ; similarly, the second class are the Grandees descended from the old ricos kombres not recognized then, but sub- sequently by Philip II. ; while the Grandees of all other periods, including those created by patent, form the third class. This classifi- cation, differing somewhat from that of Saint-Simon, is adopted by Don F. Fernandez de Bethencourt, an ex-member of the Cortes, whose vast history of the dignity is in course of publication.

Of its soundness there is proof in the minutiae of the ceremony once observed in the reception of a Grandee. His Catholic Majesty addressed the command to resume his chapeau, " Cobrios !'* upon the third bow made by a Grandee of the highest degree, and before the latter's harangue; upon a speech followed by a fourth bow from a Grandee of the second class, after which his Majesty in turn addressed him ; the com- mand to cover his head was only addressed to a Grandee of the third class after the royal reply to his speech, which was preceded by no fewer than three obeisances.

It is, of course, no disparagement of the dignity enjoyed by a select few Englishmen to consider their Grandeeships (dating from 1653, 1759, and 1812) as other than of the antiquity which, by a time-honoured usage, they with their fellows of Spanish nationality are entitled to affect.

In descent, Grandeeships and the titles identified or conferred with them pass to heirs-of-line in preference to heirs-male. This system either favours the accumulation of Grandeeships and titles to an immoderate extent, or it may carry the most renowned titles and finest lands in the country to a quite undistinguished family, while cadets of the blood to which the honour was originally decreed go unadorned. To those who consider male descent the thing, genea- logically speaking, it is often, therefore, difficult to admire anything but historic titles in ti\ekachiot descents and substituted surnames which make many a Peninsular pedigree, and I imagine that at least one of the examples cited with enthusiasm by Mr. Roland Thirlmere, in his recent entertaining 'Letters from Catalonia,' will leave genea- logists frigid. In conclusion, Spain, un- fortunately for her pedigrees in their early reaches, has not yet produced an expert of the calibre of Mr. Horace Round.

V. D. P.

DANTEIANA. 1. ' INF.,' xv. 23:

Fui conosciuto da un, che mi prese Per lo lembo e grido : Qual maraviglia I This un was, of course, Brunetto Latini. But why does Dante place him amongst those who have done violence to nature ? As Scartazzini pertinently observes,

" Del vizio di che Dante lo fa colpevole non se ne sa d' altronde nulla, ed e un enimma perche il Poeta lo abbia posto in cosi brutto luogo."

Surely he must have had some basis for this extraordinary treatment of his old counsellor other than his acknowledged impartiality ! Perhaps Dbllinger (' Dante as a Prophet' in 4 Studies in European History ') sounded the key-note when he wrote :

"Dante has certainly no suspicion that he himself as well as all his contemporaries are lying buried under a mountain of impostures, fictions, and fabrications, which it will only be given to much later years to remove."

And the location of Latini in this Circle is all the more curious, for, as Cary observes, " the sin for which he is condemned by his pupil is mentioned in his ' Tesoretto' with great horror." One is hardly astonished to learn from Lombard i,

" Viene per questo scrivere il ppeta nostro, rim- proverato d' ingratitudine da molti,"

though one may challenge his suggested! utility of Dante's incomprehensible action : " Supposta pert) la verita non si puo negare che- serva questo avviso di fortissimo ritegno a quelli che ammaestrano la gioventu."

This was sufficiently guaranteed by the presence of undoubted culprits in the persons of Francesco d'Accorso and Andrea, de' Mozzi. Possibly the key to the mystery may lie in Villain's mot " uomo mondano," albeit neither a worldly man nor a man of the world is necessarily a pederast, and in this connexion I cannot accept Plumptre's hint that " the use of the feminine mondancc- as =meretnce shows the connotation of the adjective."

Cary's comment on the presence of Priscian is on all fours with that of Lom- bardi's anent Latini, and of similar value. Dante had no need to make scapegoats of innocent men to "imply the frequency of the- crime among those who abused the oppor- tunities which the education of youth afforded them to so abominable a purpose," when D'Accorso and De 1 Mozzi were to his hand. The mystery, therefore, remains unsolved, and Dante must stand " rimprqverato d' in- gratitudine" and unusual unfairness, until, at least, a well-grounded vindication shall remove the double imputation.