The unhappy monarch survived the date of this very striking letter but two years, and died in 1284. At one period of his life, his consideration throughout Christendom was so great, that he was elected Emperor of Germany; but this was only another source of sorrow to him, for his claims were contested, and after some time were silently set aside by the election of Rodolph of Hapsburg, upon whose dynasty the glories of the House of Austria rested so long. The life of Alfonso, therefore, was on the whole unfortunate, and full of painful vicissitudes, that might well have broken the spirit of most men, and that were certainly not without an effect on his.[42] [42] The principal life of Alfonso X. is that by the Marquis of Mondejar (Madrid, 1777, fol.); but it did not receive its author’s final revision, and is an imperfect work. (Prólogo de Cerdá y Rico; and Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Madrid, 1790, 4to, Tom. II. pp. 304-312.) For the part of Alfonso’s life devoted to letters, ample materials are to be found in Castro, (Biblioteca Española, Tom. II. pp. 625-688,) and in the Repertorio Americano (Lóndres, 1827, Tom. III. pp. 67-77); where there is a valuable paper, written, I believe, by Salvá, who published that journal. So much the more remarkable is it, that he should be distinguished among the chief founders of his country’s intellectual fame,--a distinction which again becomes more extraordinary when we recollect that he enjoys it not in letters alone, or in a single department, but in many; since he is to be remembered alike for the great advancement which Castilian prose composition made in his hands, for his poetry, for his astronomical tables, which all the progress of science since has not deprived of their value; and for his great work on legislation, which is at this moment an authority in both hemispheres.[43]