[265] The whole account in Froissart is worth reading, especially in Lord Berners’s translation, (London, 1812, 4to, Vol. I. c. 231, etc.,) as an illustration of Ayala. [266] See the passage in which Mariana gives an account of the battle. Historia, Lib. XVII. c. 10. “He was,” says his nephew, the noble Fernan Perez de Guzman, in the striking gallery of portraits he has left us,[267] “He was a man of very gentle qualities and of good conversation; had a great conscience and feared God much. He loved knowledge, also, and gave himself much to reading books and histories; and though he was as goodly a knight as any, and of great discretion in the practices of the world, yet he was by nature bent on learning, and spent a great part of his time in reading and studying, not books of law, but of philosophy and history. Through his means some books are now known in Castile that were not known aforetime; such as Titus Livius, who is the most notable of the Roman historians; the ‘Fall of Princes’; the ‘Ethics’ of Saint Gregory; Isidorus ‘De Summo Bono’; Boethius; and the ‘History of Troy.’ He prepared the History of Castile from the King Don Pedro to the King Don Henry; and made a good book on Hunting, which he greatly affected, and another called ‘Rimado de Palacio.’” [267] Generaciones y Semblanzas, Cap. 7, Madrid, 1775, 4to, p. 222. We should not, perhaps, at the present day, claim so much reputation as his kinsman does for the Chancellor Ayala, in consequence of the interest he took in books of such doubtful value as Guido de Colonna’s “Trojan War,” and Boccaccio “De Casibus Principum,” but, in translating Livy,[268] he unquestionably rendered his country an important service. He rendered, too, a no less important service to himself; since a familiarity with Livy tended to fit him for the task of preparing the Chronicle, which now constitutes his chief distinction and merit.[269] It begins in 1350, where that of Alfonso the Eleventh ends, and comes down to the sixth year of Henry the Third, or to 1396, embracing that portion of the author’s own life which was between his eighteenth year and his sixty-fourth, and constituting the first safe materials for the history of his native country. [268] It is probable Ayala translated, or caused to be translated, all these books. At least, such has been the impression; and the mention of Isidore of Seville among the authors “made known” seems to justify it, for, as a Spaniard of great fame, St. Isidore must always have been _known_ in Spain in every other way, except by a translation into Spanish. See, also, the Preface to the edition of Boccaccio, Caída de Príncipes, 1495, in Fr. Mendez, Typografía Española, Madrid, 1796, 4to, p. 202.