Washington Irving refers to the “self-sustained zeal of one of the last veterans of Spanish literature, who is almost alone, yet indefatigable, in his labors in a country where at present literary exertion meets with but little excitement or reward.” Such is his introduction of Martin Fernandez de Navarrete,[21] who was born in 1765, and as a young man gave some active and meritorious service in the Spanish navy. In 1789 he was forced by ill-health to abandon the sea. He then accepted a commission from Charles IV. to examine all the depositories of documents in the kingdom, and arrange the material to be found in illustration of the history of the Spanish navy.[22] This work he continued, with interruptions, till 1825, when he began at Madrid the publication of his _Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines del siglo XV._,[23] which reached an extent of five volumes, and was completed in 1837. It put in convenient printed form more than five hundred documents of great value, between the dates of 1393 and 1540. A sixth and seventh volume were left unfinished at his death, which occurred in 1844, at the age of seventy-eight.[24] His son afterward gathered some of his minor writings, including biographies of early navigators,[25] and printed (1848) them as a _Coleccion de opúsculos_; and in 1851 another of his works, _Biblioteca maritima Española_, was printed at Madrid in two volumes.[26] The first two volumes of his collection (of which volumes there was a second edition in 1858) bore the distinctive title, _Relaciones, cartas y otros documentos, concernientes á los cuatro viages que hizo el Almirante D. Cristóbal Colon para el descubrimiento de las Indias occidentales, and Documentos diplomáticos_. Three years later (1828) a French version of these two volumes appeared at Paris, which Navarrete himself revised, and which is further enriched with notes by Humboldt, Jomard, Walckenaer, and others.[27] This French edition is entitled: _Relation des quatres voyages entrepris par Ch. Colomb pour la découverte du Nouveau Monde de 1492 à 1504, traduite par Chalumeau de Vernéuil? et de la Roquette_. It is in three volumes, and is worth about twenty francs. An Italian version, _Narrazione dei quattro viaggi_, etc., was made by F. Giuntini, and appeared in two volumes at Prato in 1840-1841.[28] Navarrete’s literary labors did not prevent much conspicuous service on his part, both at sea and on land; and in 1823, not long before he published his great Collection, he became the head of the Spanish hydrographic bureau.[29] After his death the Spanish Academy printed (1846) his historical treatise on the Art of Navigation and kindred subjects (_Disertacion sobre la historia de la náutica_[30]), which was an enlargement of an earlier essay published in 1802.