Note 871 — Chapter V
Reading edition
The Diálogo de las Lenguas was not printed till it appeared in Mayans y Siscar, “Orígenes de la Lengua Española,” (Madrid, 1737, 2 tom. 12mo); where it fills the first half of the second volume, and is the best thing in the collection. Probably the manuscript had been kept out of sight as the work of a well-known heretic. Mayans says, that it could be traced to Zurita, the historian, and that, in 1736, it was purchased for the Royal Library, of which Mayans himself was then librarian. One leaf was wanting, which he could not supply; and though he seems to have believed Valdés to have been the author of the Dialogue, he avoids saying so,—perhaps from an unwillingness to attract the notice of the Inquisition to it. (Orígenes, Tom. I. pp. 173-180.) Iriarte, in the “Aprobacion” of the collection, treats the Diálogo as if its author were quite unknown.