Note 48 — Chapter X

Time had passed agreeably for the people with some festivities that were celebrated at the dedication of the church of Santa Potenciana, on May 19, which were very diverting and ingenious. There were poetical competitions, which were arranged for that celebration by the cleverness of Don José de Castellar, who had been the secretary of Governor Don Manuel de León—at whose posthumous expense had been rebuilt that church and royal seminary. In these exercises the geniuses that are in Filipinas showed that in that remotest corner of the world is hidden much that could shine in the principal courts of Europa; for the poems that were presented therein, both Latin and Castilian, might have been a credit to the leading universities. And certainly there was verified the saying and opinion of some critics who assert that Filipinas is composed of quintessences,48 for many of these are found there, not only of good but of evil; and therefore in the pulpits as well as in theology (both scholastic and moral) there never lack stars of the first magnitude; and in all the rest “a hair is cut in the air,”49 as the common saying goes.