But, in his old age, his heart turned more and more to the thoughts and feelings of his youth, and, gathering together the few materials he could collect from among his kinsmen on the Pacific, as well as from the stores of his own memory and the records already accumulated in Spain, he published, in 1609, the first part of his “Commentaries on Peru”; the second of which, though licensed for the press in 1613, did not appear till 1617, the year after its author’s death. It is a garrulous, gossiping book, written in a diffuse style, and abounding in matters personal to himself. In its very division, he acknowledges frankly the conflicting claims that he felt were upon him. The earlier half, he says, relates to the eighteen Incas known to Peruvian history, and contains an account of the traditions of the country, its institutions, manners, and general character; all which he offers as a tribute due to his descent from the Children of the Sun. The remainder--which, with many episodes and much irrelevant, but not always unpleasant, discussion, contains the history of the Spanish conquest, and of the quarrels of the Spaniards with each other growing out of it--he offers, in like manner, to the glories of the great Spanish family with which he was connected, and which numbered on its rolls some of the brightest names in the Castilian annals. In both parts, his Commentaries are a striking and interesting book, showing much of the spirit of the old chronicles, and infected with even more than the common measure of chronicling credulity; since, with a natural willingness to believe whatever fables were honorable to the land of his birth, he mingles a constant anxiety to show that he is, above every thing else, a Catholic Christian, whose faith was much too ample to reject the most extravagant legends of his Church, and too pure to tolerate the idolatry of that royal ancestry which he yet cannot help regarding with reverence and admiration.[215] [215] “La Traduccion del Indio de los Tres Diálogos de Amor, de Leon Hebreo, echado de Italiano en Espagnol, por Garcilasso Inga de la Vega,” Madrid, 1590, 4to. A Spanish translation of it, which I have seen, had appeared at Venice in 1568, and I believe there was another at Zaragoza in 1584, of which it seems strange that Garcilasso knew nothing. (Barbosa, Bib. Lus., Tom. II. p. 920; Castro, Bib., Tom. I. p. 371; and Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 232.) The letter of Garcilasso to Philip II., with additional remarks by its author, containing interesting materials for his own life, is prefixed to the first edition of the second part of the Commentaries on Peru. “La Florida” was printed at Lisbon in 1606, 4to; the first part of the Peru at Lisbon, 1609, folio; and the second part at Córdova, 1617, folio. Both of the historical works are to be found in several other editions, and both have been translated into most of the languages of modern Europe.