Of the twelve works here referred to, the Madrid manuscript contains only three. One is a long letter to his brother, the Archbishop of Toledo, and Chancellor of the kingdom, in which he gives, first, an account of his family arms; then the reason why he and his right heirs male could make knights without having received any order of knighthood, as he himself had done when he was not yet two years old; and lastly, the report of a solemn conversation he had held with Sancho the Fourth on his death-bed, in which the king bemoaned himself bitterly, that, having for his rebellion justly received the curse of his father, Alfonso the Wise, he had now no power to give a dying man’s blessing to Don John. Another of the works in the Madrid manuscript is a treatise in twenty-six chapters, called “Counsels to his Son Ferdinand”; which is, in fact, an essay on the Christian and moral duties of one destined by his rank to the highest places in the state, referring sometimes to the more ample discussions on similar subjects in Don John’s treatise on the Different Estates or Conditions of Men, apparently a longer work, not now known to exist. But the third and longest is the most interesting. It is “The Book of the Knight and the Esquire,” “written,” says the author, “in the manner called in Castile _fabliella_,” (a little fable,) and sent to his brother, the Archbishop, that he might translate it into Latin; a proof, and not the only one, that Don John placed small value upon the language to which he now owes all his honors. The book itself contains an account of a young man who, encouraged by the good condition of his country under a king that called his Cortes together often, and gave his people good teachings and good laws, determines to seek advancement in the state. On his way to a meeting of the Cortes, where he intends to be knighted, he meets a retired cavalier, who in his hermitage explains to him all the duties and honors of chivalry, and thus prepares him for the distinction to which he aspires. On his return, he again visits his aged friend, and is so delighted with his instructions, that he remains with him, ministering to his infirmities and profiting by his wisdom, till his death, after which the young knight goes to his own land, and lives there in great honor the rest of his life. The story, or little fable, is, however, a very slight thread, serving only to hold together a long series of instructions on the moral duties of men, and on the different branches of human knowledge, given with earnestness and spirit, in the fashion of the times.[105] [105] Of this manuscript of Don John in the Library at Madrid, I have, through the kindness of Professor Gayangos, a copy, filling 199 closely written folio pages.