Note 113 — Chapter XXXIV

The name of this author is one of the many that occur in Spanish literature and history, where it is difficult to determine which part of it should be used to designate its owner. The whole of it is Gerónymo de Alcalá Yañez y Rivera; and, no doubt, his personal acquaintances knew him as “the Doctor Gerónymo.” In the Index to Antonio’s Bib. Nova, he is placed under Alcalá; but as that name only implied, I presume, that he had studied in Alcalá, I have preferred to call him Yañez y Rivera, the first being his father’s name and the second his mother’s; and I mention the circumstance only because it is a difficulty which occurs in many cases of the same sort, and should be noticed once for all. The title of his romance is “Alonso Moço de Muchos Amos,” and the first part was first printed at Madrid, in 1624; but my copy is of the edition of Barcelona, 1625, 12mo, showing that it was well regarded in its time, and soon came to a second edition. Many editions have been published since; sometimes, like that of Madrid, 1804, 2 tom. 12mo, with the title of “El Donado Hablador,” or The Talkative Lay-Brother, that being the character in which the hero tells his story. Yañez y Rivera was born in 1563.