The second of these biographical works is the history of Count Alvaro de Luna. The author, whose name is not known, appears to have been in the Count’s service, and to have taken up the pen soon after the execution of that extraordinary man, to raise a monument to his memory in defiance of his enemies.[136] The work is in fact an apology, in which the enthusiasm of the anonymous author for his hero carries him beyond the bounds of historical calmness and of impartiality. But this very enthusiasm gives the work a degree of rhetorical interest, which is wanting in the chronicles. Alvaro de Luna is regarded by his apologist in his real character; namely, as the greatest, if not the most disinterested man of his age in Spain: and it was the author’s intention that the animated picture he drew should mortify and shame the powerful party which overthrew his hero. His zeal frequently betrays him into declamatory pomp. But what other Spanish writer of that age could declaim with so much eloquence.[137] He is not, however, always declamatory. His introduction, notwithstanding the high elevation of the ideas, possesses real dignity of expression, combined with the true harmony of prose.[138] His apostrophe to truth at the close of this introduction, is a genuine overflowing of the heart.[139] It is true that the narrative itself somewhat inclines to the manner of the chronicles; but the spirit which pervades the whole work is perceptible even in the style which, considered with reference to the period in which it was written, is remarkable for precision and facility.[140] In short, this biographical chronicle, estimated by its rhetorical merit, has, in spite of all its gothic ornaments and declamatory excrescences, no parallel among the chronicles of the age to which it belongs. _Los Claros Varones_, the Celebrated Men, is a work which claims particular attention. The author is Fernando del Pulgar, who filled the office of historiographer in the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand. This ingenious man was ambitious to be thought the Plutarch of his nation. In his twenty-six short biographical sketches, he has, however, confined himself within limits too narrow to effect all that he was capable of; but the precision of his descriptions, and the purity of his style, are nevertheless remarkable for the age in which he flourished.[141] Fernando del Pulgar is also the oldest Castilian author in the epistolary style; and upon the whole he may be regarded as the first, who, in the character of a statesman and public functionary, formed his correspondence in a modern language on the model of Cicero and Pliny.[142]