More serious and less attractive historians are Pedro Mexía (1496-1552), whose _Historia Imperial y Cesárea_ is a careful compilation of biographies of Roman rules from Cæsar to Maximilian, and Florián de Ocampo (1499-1555), canon of Zamora, and an official chronicler, who, taking the Deluge as his starting-point, naturally enough fails to bring his dry-as-dust annals later than Roman times, and endeavours to follow the critical canons of his time with better intention than performance. The _Comentarios de la Guerra en Alemania_ of Luis de Ávila y Zúñiga are valuable as containing the evidence of an acute, direct observer of events; but Ávila's exaggerated esteem for his master causes him to convert his history into an elaborate apology. Carlos Quinto's own dry criticism of the book is final:—"Alexander's achievements surpassed mine—but he was less lucky in his chronicler." The conquest of America begot a crowd of histories, of which but few need be named here. González Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478-1557), once secretary to the Great Captain, gives an official picture of the New World in his _Historia general y natural de Indias_, and a similar study from an opposed and higher point of view is to be found in the work of Bartolomé de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa (1474-1566), whose passionate eloquence on behalf of the American Indians is displayed in his _Brevísima relación de la destrucción de Indias_ (1552); but here again history declines into polemics, the offices of judge and advocate overlapping. The famous HERNÁN CORTÉS (1485-1554), _El Conquistador_, was a man of action; but his official reports on Mexico and its affairs are drawn up with exceeding skill, and in energy of phrase and luminous concision may stand as models in their kind. Cortés found his panegyrist in his chaplain, Francisco López de Gómara (1519-60), whose interesting _Conquista de Méjico_ is an uncritical eulogy on his chief, whom he extols at the expense of his brother adventurers. The antidote was supplied by BERNAL DÍAZ DEL CASTILLO (fl. 1568), whose _Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España_ is a first-class example of military indignation. "Here the chronicler Gómara in his history says just the opposite of what really happened. Whoso reads him will see that he writes well, and that, with proper information, he could have stated his facts correctly: as it is, they are all lies." The manifest honesty and simplicity of the old soldier, who shared in one hundred and nineteen engagements and could not sleep unless in armour, are extremely winning; his prolix ingenuousness has been admirably rendered in our day by a descendant of the Conquistadores, M. José María Heredia, whose French version is a triumph of translation.