430
APPENDIX.
therein several chapters recording certain events and achievements which had taken place in his time ; and my grandmother his widow, who was very old, hearing me read them said to me, ' A n d thou, my son, since thou art not slothful in writing, why dost thou not write, in this manner, the good things which are happening at present in thy own day, that those who come hereafter may know them, and marveling at what they read may render thanks to God.' " From that time," continues he, " I proposed to do so, and as I con足 sidered the matter, I said often to myself, ' if God gives me life and health I will continue to write until I behold the kingdom of Granada gained by the Christians ;' and I always entertained a hope of seeing it, and did see it : great thanks and praises be given to our Saviour Jesus Christ !
And
because it was impossible to write a complete and connected account of all things that happened in Spain, during the matrimonial union of the king D o n Ferdinand, and the queen D o n a Isabella, I wrote only about certain of the most striking and remarkable events, of which I had correct information, and of those which I saw or which were public and notorious to all men."* T h e work of the worthy curate, as may be inferred from the foregoing statement, is deficient in regularity of plan ; the style is artless and often inelegant, but it abounds in facts not to be met with elsewhere, often given in a very graphical manner, and strongly characteristic of the times. A s he was contemporary with the events and familiar with many of the persons of his history, and as he was a man of probity and void of all pre足 tension, his manuscript is a document of high authenticity.
H e was much
respected in the limited sphere in which he moved, " yet," says one of his admirers, who wrote a short preface to his chronicle, " he had no other reward than that of the curacy of Los Palacios, and the place of chaplain to the archbishop Don Diego Deza." In the possession of O . Rich, Esq., of Madrid, is a very curious manu足 script chronicle of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella already quoted in this work, made up from this history of the curate of Los Palacios, and from various other historians of the times, by some contemporary writer. In his account of the voyage of Columbus, he differs in some trivial par足 ticulars from the regular copy of the manuscript of the curate.
These
variations have been carefully examined by the author of this work, and wherever they appear to be for the better, have been adopted.
* Cura de los Palacios, cap. 7.