Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/437

Rh in the sixty-first year of his age, having preserved his judgment and faculties until the latest hour. His funeral was attended by the archbishop of Lima, the ecclesiastical and secular chapters, the religious communities, and the whole of the nobility residing in the capital. The tears of the poor, the encomiums of the learned, and the grief of all, were his funereal panegyric and his triumph.

Don Antonio Leon Pinelo was the eldest of three brothers, all of them distinguished by their learning and accomplishments. It has not been precisely ascertained whether he was born in Lima, or in another part of the kingdom; but it is certain that he was entered as a student in the royal university of St. Mark, where his preceptor. Dr. Velazques, a native of Lima, inspired him with a taste for the study of the jurisprudence of the Indies. Accordingly, in 1623, he published a discourse on the importance, and methodical compilement (recopilacion), of the laws of the Indies, which was so well received in Spain, that it procured him the appointment of reporter to the supreme council for the affairs of the Indies. He afterwards composed two volumes, in which he made a practical application of the theory of his discourse; and, which, under the title of “Compilement of the Laws of the Indies,” are consulted at this hour in all affairs relative to the jurisprudence of the Spanish colonies. In prosecuting this very arduous and useful task, he appears to have laboured with a most indefatigable industry. “Having,” he observes, “obtained permission to consult all the books and papers contained in the departments of the two secretaries of Peru and New Spain, I perused, in the space of two years, five hundred books of manuscript schedules, and, in them, upwards of