Luis de León, on the recovery of his freedom, might exclaim, in the words of the Persiles of Cervantes (Cervantes, who professed himself Luis de León’s “reverent votary and follower,” _á quien yo reverencio, adoro y sigo_): “I give you thanks, immense and merciful Heavens, that you have brought me to die where your light may look upon my death, and not in the shades of the dark prison-house which I now leave.” He survived for fifteen years, dying on the 23rd of August, 1591, nine days after being promoted from Vicar-General to Provincial of his Order. His good humour and natural gaiety, his unselfishness and common-sense, won for him many and strong friendships--we feel, indeed, that he was a man not without failings, but entirely lovable. He had been commanded by the Inquisitor-General to publish his own works, and was entrusted with the publication of those of Santa Teresa. His second Inquisition trial arose apparently from a lecture on the vexed question of predestination and freewill. It was declared that the University of Salamanca was greatly scandalized at the boldness with which he maintained that the contrary of his own opinion was heresy. The matter, however, ended by his being “benevolently and lovingly admonished” at Toledo. Besides these and many other occupations, he gave ungrudging help to the Carmelite nuns in asserting their independence, which was threatened by a reform sanctioned by Philip II. The Pope, indeed, was favourable to the nuns, but the King opposed the Papal Brief, and Luis de León is reported to have said: “It is impossible to carry out a single order of His Holiness in Spain.” The story that Fray Luis died of grief on account of the King’s anger at this opposition is certainly untrue, although it is likely enough that the King was annoyed. He is said to have exclaimed: “Quien le mete á Frai Luis en estas cosas?--What has Fray Luis to do in this _galère_?” Luis de León’s life was thus not without many turmoils. But we may like best to think of him, as in the description in his “Nombres de Cristo,” “in the month of June, after the Feast of St. John when the Salamanca term breaks up,” retiring from a long year of work to the country house possessed by his monastery on the banks of the Tormes. There, in the great garden of trees growing without order, with a stream “running and pausing as if in laughter,” and with the winding river Tormes in sight--“a place far better than the professor’s chair”--he would meditate alone or converse with friends “in the cool of the morning, on a day most calm and bright;” “for,” he says elsewhere in the same work, “it may be that in towns there is more refinement of speech, but fineness of sentiment is of the country and of solitude.” XIX THE MODERN SPANISH NOVEL I.--REVIVAL. FERNÁN CABALLERO