seems improbable that he would admit to his confidential intimacy a man so much his junior. No doubt Zúñiga (or Rodriguez) was young at the time--hardly old enough, by his own reckoning, to be an ordained priest--a _mancebo_, as he seemed to Luis de Leon's retrospicient eyes.[124] Yet it is very hard to believe that Zúñiga was no more than twenty-three when he took it upon himself to cast doubts on the orthodoxy of Benito Arias Montano;[125] nor is it likely that Luis de Leon would discuss so delicate a topic with the most brilliant of youths. Let it not be said that the question of Zúñiga's accuracy in stating his age is relatively unimportant. It is highly relevant; for, if Zúñiga were capable of making a mistake on such a point, he was manifestly more liable to error when dealing with other matters on which he necessarily knew less. However, Zúñiga's evidence is not weighty enough to call for detailed examination. He may be left to bear the burden of Luis de Leon's scorn. I am more concerned here to suggest that, on the facts before us, we are not compelled to identify the Zúñiga who deposed against Luis de Leon with a namesake of a higher intellectual type. To us who read the testimony in cold blood, more than three centuries after it was given, it seems that Luis de Leon deals as impartially with his brethren as with members of other religious orders. This was not his intention, at any rate. He knew his fellow-Augustinians better than he could know the rest, and he himself tells us not obscurely that, out of consideration for his gown, he was silent on various matters which, if proclaimed aloud, would not make for edification.[126]