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In reading his 'Chronicle' I suffered for a time from its attribution to Fray Antonio Agapida, the pious monk whom he feigns to have written it, just as in reading 'Don Quixote' I suffered from Cervantes masquerading as the Moorish scribe, Cid Hamet Ben Engeli.
"He was," says the indignant Fray Antonio Agapida, "a son of Belial, one of those fanatic infidels possessed by the devil who are sometimes permitted to predict the truth to their followers, but with the proviso that their predictions shall be of no avail." The voice of the santon resounded through the lofty hall of the Alhambra, and struck silence and awe into the crowd of courtly sycophants.
Those who may wish to know how far the work is indebted to the Chronicle of Fray Antonio Agapida may readily satisfy their curiosity by referring to his manuscript fragments, carefully preserved in the Library of the Escurial. Before entering upon the history it may be as well to notice the opinions of certain of the most learned and devout historiographers of former times relative to this war.
History is known, to my young remembrance of that library, by a History of the United States, whose dust and ashes I hardly made my way through; and by a 'Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada', by the ever dear and precious Fray Antonio Agapida, whom I was long in making out to be one and the same as Washington Irving.
There was a multitude of men with pickaxes, spades, and bars of iron clearing away every obstacle, while behind them slowly moved along great teams of oxen dragging heavy ordnance and all the munitions of battering artillery. "What cannot women and priests effect when they unite in council?" exclaims again the worthy Antonio Agapida.
But we cannot describe the character and conduct of this renowned commander in more forcible language than that of Fray Antonio Agapida, excepting that the pious father places in the foreground of his virtues his hatred of the Moors. "The count de Tendilla," says he, "was a mirror of Christian knighthood watchful, abstemious, chaste, devout, and thoroughly filled with the spirit of the cause.
"What signalized and sanctified this great triumph," adds the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida, "were the emblems of ecclesiastical domination which everywhere appeared. In every direction rose stately convents and monasteries, those fortresses of the faith garrisoned by its spiritual soldiery of monks and friars.
The earl replied that he gave thanks to God and to the Holy Virgin for being thus honored by a visit from the most potent king in Christendom; that he accepted with all gratitude his gracious consolation for the loss of his teeth, though he held it little to lose two teeth in the service of God, who had given him all "A speech," says Fray Antonio Agapida, "full of most courtly wit and Christian piety; and one only marvels that it should have been made by a native of an island so far distant from Castile."
"The reverend prelates and holy friars who always surrounded the queen looked with serene satisfaction," says Fray Antonio Agapida, "at this modern Babylon, enjoying the triumph that awaited them when those mosques and minarets should be converted into churches, and goodly priests and bishops should succeed to the infidel alfaquis."
They ranged themselves in order of battle, on the left of the road by which the queen was to pass. "The worthy Agapida is loyally minute in his description of the state and grandeur of the Catholic sovereigns. The queen rode a chestnut mule, seated in a magnificent saddle-chair, decorated with silver gilt.
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