Note 76 — Chapter IX

In noticing the Hebrew temperament of Luis de Leon, I am reminded of one of his contemporaries, who possessed in some respects a kindred spirit, and whose fate was even more strange and unhappy. I refer to Juan Pinto Delgado, a Portuguese Jew, who lived long in Spain, embraced the Christian religion, was reconverted to the faith of his fathers, fled from the terrors of the Inquisition to France, and died there about the year 1590. In 1627, a volume of his works, containing narrative poems on Queen Esther and on Ruth, free versions from the Lamentations of Jeremiah in the old national quintillas, and sonnets and other short pieces, generally in the Italian manner, was published at Rouen in France, and dedicated to Cardinal Richelieu, then the all-powerful minister of Louis XIII. They are full of the bitter and sorrowful feelings of his exile, and parts of them are written, not only with tenderness, but in a sweet and pure versification. The Hebrew spirit of the author, whose proper name is Moseh Delgado, breaks through constantly, as might be expected. Barbosa, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p. 722. Amador de los Rios, Judios de España, Madrid, 1848, 8vo, p. 500.