Note 848 — Chapter V

Diálogos muy Subtiles y Notables, etc., por D. Pedro de Navarra, Obispo de Comenge, Çaragoça, 1567, 12mo, 118 leaves. The first five Dialogues are on the Character becoming a Royal Chronicler; the next four on the Differences between a Rustic and a Noble Life; and the remaining thirty-one on Preparation for Death;—all written in a pure, simple Castilian style, but with little either new or striking in the thoughts. Their author says, it was a rule of the Academia, that the person who arrived last at each meeting should furnish a subject for discussion, and direct another member to reduce to writing the remarks that might be made on it,—Cardinal Poggio, Juan d’Estuñiga, knight-commander of Castile, and other persons of note, being of the society. Navarra adds, that he had written two hundred dialogues, in which there were “few matters that had not been touched upon in that excellent Academy,” and notes especially, that the subject of Preparation for Death had been discussed after the decease of Cobos, a confidential minister of Charles V., and that he himself had acted as secretary on the occasion. Traces of any thing contemporary are, however, rare in the forty dialogues he printed;—the most important that I have noticed relating to Charles V. and his retirement at San Yuste, which the good Bishop seems to have believed was a sincere abandonment of all worldly thoughts and passions. I find nothing to illustrate the character of Cortés, except the fact that such meetings were held at his house.