As Prescott remarks-"We cannot look at it, in connection with the age and the auspices under which it was accomplished, without regarding it as a noble monument of piety, learning, and munificence, which entitles its author to the gratitude of the whole Christian world." Ximenes, though not an extensive general scholar, was well qualified for this particular task. He urged his assistants, who were all selected for their profound erudition, to complete the volumes, and encouraged them by his presence. "Lose no time, my friends," he said to them, "in the prosecution of our glorious work, lest, in the casualties of life, you should lose your patron, or I have to lament the loss of those whose services are of more price in my eyes than wealth and worldly honors."* The Spanish historians have recorded the names of these learn

ample funds and stores for the prosecution of | foundation of later and more perfect ones. the war, together with much able advice, which was sure to be disregarded as soon as his back was turned, he went back to Spain with a scanty train of attendants, in an unarmed galley. He was received, on landing, with enthusiastic greetings; but he declined all public honors and congratulations, and his demeanor, instead of being inflated by the great triumph he had achieved, became more simple and unpretending than before. Seven or eight years of life and power still remained to him, during which he dedicated much of his time to the improvement of his celebrated University of Alcalà, founded in 1500; and also to the completion of the far famed Bible which bears his name, and is to this day one of the great lions of a few public libraries. Either of these two undertakings would have sufficed to render his name immortal; and to carry them out required noted associates. The expense incurred must only the influence but the wealth of a monarch. In eight years the college was finished, furnished, and ambly endowed; but fifteen elapsed before the Bible saw the light in a perfect form. The book called the Complutensian Polyglot (from the place where it was printed, Complutum,* or Alcalà de Henares), is a glorious specimen of early typography, and one that rejoices the heart and dazzles the eyes of a true bibliomaniac whenever he chances to stumble on a copy, which will not often happen. Six hundred was the original number struck, of which by far the greater portion has disappeared, either buried in convents or destroyed by the ravages of war and time. The original price was six ducats and a half. According to Brunet, copies have been sold so high as £63. If one was to be announced to-morrow under the hammer of the auctioneer, it would produce a fancy price, almost as extravagant as the reputed value of the koh-i-noor. Three copies of the first edition were printed on vellum, for one of which Count MacCarthy, of Toulouse, paid £483, at the sale of the Pinelli library. The work is in six volumes folio: the old Testament occupies the four first, the fifth is devoted to the New, and the last contains a Hebrew and Chaldaic vocabulary, with other incidental treatises. Modern criticism has detected many errors in the text; but the cardinal's Bible will ever be valuable as the first successful attempt at a polyglot version of the Scriptures, and the

The word complutum is probably derived from

the fruitfulness of the soil.

have been enormous, but the revenues of Ximenes were equal to it. The art of printing was then in its infancy, and oriental types were unknown in Spain, and probably in Europe. He imported artists from Germany, had types cast under his own eye in the founderies at Alcalà, and spared nothing that money could obtain. The languages employed are four. The part devoted to the Old Testament contains the Hebrew original, with the Latin vulgate of Jerome, the Greek Septuagint version, and the Chaldaic paraphrase, with Latin translations by the Spanish scholars. The New Testament is printed in the original Greek, with the Latin vulgate of Jerome. The curious on this subject will find ample information and details in Dr. Dibdin's "Library Companion." and other bibliographical works of that voluminous writer. The antiquity of the manuscripts employed in this great compilation has been disputed vehemently (what has not been disputed?); but the question must remain for ever sub judice, for good authority states that, towards the end of the last century, a wicked Erostratus of a librarian, in whose custody they were, sold them as waste paper to a rocket-maker of Alcalà, who soon worked them up in the regular way. The ghost of Ximenes is firmly believed to have appeared to the garrison of Oran in 1643, to encourage them in their defence against the Algerines. It is much to be lamented that the spectre did not again revisit the "glimpses of the moon," and perpetually haunt the slumbers of this modern

See Quintanilla and Gomez, quoted by Prescott † There is a very fine one in the British Museum. Į ("Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.”)

But Christ Church, Oxford, remains an imper

fered himself to be persuaded to write a cold, | motives of both. The latter seems to have hypocritical letter to the great minister, been an ultra-expedientist-a man who cared naming the time and place for a personal not how his ends were accomplished, and conference, thanking him for past services, who used the name of Christianity as a conand suggesting his immediate retirement to venient and controlling implement. The his diocese. The unexpected blow cut the Spaniard was sincere; the Frenchman a proud cardinal to the heart, and checked his hypocrite or an unbeliever; and yet both, in hitherto indomitable spirit. According to According to their last moments, appealed from the judgsome historians he died of this unfeeling ment of men, to a more absolute and awful epistle, but it seems more likely that he died tribunal, in nearly the same words, and with of eighty-one; the latter cause will suffice a corresponding confidence. Here is one of without the accelerating stimulant. Ximenes the enigmas of human feeling which we was too tough and stubborn to be extin- strive in vain to unravel or understand. The guished by a letter, or by royal ingratitude, greatest criminals, the most licentious offendhowever pungently conveyed; time and dis- ers, often die as calmly as the uniformly ease had worn him out, and he bowed his virtuous, and appear to be as well satisfied head in obedience to the summons of the that mercy will be extended to their transgrim monarch of the grave, which was de-gressions. livered simultaneously with the missive of the great temporal autocrat. He commenced a letter to King Charles in reply, but at few lines exhausted him, and the effort was suspended. On the 8th of November, 1517, his attenuated frame became the dust from whence all humanity derives its origin. His last words were those of the Psalmist, uttered in the Latin tongue, "In thee, O Lord, have I trusted; let me never be confounded." | He was buried with great pomp, contrary to his own express desire. On his deathbed, and just before he received the last sacraments, he uttered these words, recorded by the listeners-"I have no cause to afflict myself that I have ever done an injury or injustice during the whole course of my administration; and I indeed have all the reason in the world to believe, that I have never lost an occasion on which I could afford my assistance to any one that required it. With respect to the revenues, which as an ecclesiastic I have possessed, and of which I am now about to give an account to God, I most firmly and solemnly protest, that I have never diverted from its proper destination a single crown piece to the advantage of myself and of my relations." We may believe in the sincerity of Ximenes, whose life furnished the best comment upon his creed; but how are we to reconcile the similar dying avowal of Richelieu, who said, in the same extremity "I am in the presence of the Judge, who will speedily pronounce my sentence. treat of Him, with my whole heart, to condemn me, if, during my ministry, I have ever been guided by other thoughts than the interests of religion and my native country." Ximenes was inflexibly conscientious: Richelieu knew not the meaning of the word (we judge by the positive actions and apparent

I en

Ximenes was altogether one of the most extraordinary men that ever lived. Impartial posterity can detect that his politics were sometimes wrong, but his motives and principles were invariably right. He was sometimes less scrupulous of means than true apostolic religion sanctions, but his violent and extreme measures had no taint of selfishness. His polar star was duty, and from that he never deviated. This inward conviction of integrity in purpose led him to adopt measures which would have been more satisfactory, and more completely justifiable, had they been carried out by a milder and more strictly orthodox course. But in all this he had no thought of himself, and neither rewarded nor punished from private predilection or personal pique. He despised libels, lampoons, and caricatures, by which great and strong minds have been disturbed; he equally repudiated indirect support or justification, and resolved to govern by the innate virtue of power combined with integrity. With unbounded resources, he provided for no poor relations, and left no private pensions. to impoverish the exchequer of the minister who succeeded him. His accumulated savings were settled on the university of his own creation. Flechier describes his character as follows:-"As dexterous as Ferdinand himself in the art of governing mankind, he infinitely surpassed him in the qualities of the heart: noble, magnificent, generous, the protector of innocence, of virtue, and of merit, he conceived and executed no plans but those which were of use to mankind. Yet, as everything human must have some alloy, his excellent qualities were occasionally tarnished by severity, by obstinacy, and by ambition. Of his merits, perhaps, no greater testimony can be given, than that his sovereign, Ferdi

From the Biographical Magazine.

LORD DEN MAN.