Spanish historians, that does not seem to have been lost on them. See the Chronicle of Dexter at the end of Antonio’s Bibliotheca Vetus; the Historias Fabulosas of Antonio, with the Life of its author prefixed by Mayans y Siscar, (Madrid, 1742, folio,) to show the grossness of the whole imposture; and the “Chrónica Universal” of Alonso Maldonado, (Madrid, 1624, folio,) to show how implicitly it was then believed and followed by learned men. The man of learning who was the most clear-sighted about “The Leaden Books” and the _chronicones_, and who behaved with the most courage in relation to them from the first, was, I suppose, the Bishop of Segorbe, who is noticed in Villanueva, “Viage Literario á las Iglesias de España,” (Madrid, 1804, 8vo, Tom. III. p. 166,) together with the document (pp. 259-278) in which he exposes the whole fraud, but which was never before published. Of this class, the first in importance and the most comprehensive in character is “The General History of the Indies,” by Antonio de Herrera. It embraces the period from the first discovery of America to the year 1554; and as Herrera was a practised writer, and, from his official position as historiographer to the Indies, had access to every source of information known in his time, his work, which was printed in 1601, is of great value. But he was the author of other historical works, for which his qualifications and resources were less satisfactory and his prejudices more abundant;--such as a “History of the World during the Reign of Philip the Second,” a History of the affairs of England and Scotland, during the unhappy times of Mary Stuart; a History of the League in France; and a History of the affair of Antonio Perez and the troubles that followed it;--all written under the influence of contemporary passions, and all published between 1589 and 1612, before any of these passions had been much tranquillized. It is sufficient to say of them, that, in the case of Antonio Perez, Herrera suppresses nearly every one of the important facts that tend to the justification of that remarkable man; and that, by way of a glorious termination to his Universal History, he gives Philip the Second, in his death-struggles, miraculous assistance from heaven, to enable him to end his long and holy life by an act of devotion. Herrera’s chief reputation, therefore, as an historian, must rest upon his great work on the Discovery and Conquest of America, in which, indeed, his style, nowhere rich or powerful, seems better and more effective than it is in his other attempts at historical composition. He died in 1625, above seventy-six years old, much valued by Philip the Fourth, as he had been by that monarch’s father and grandfather.[213]