Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/219

HER CHARACTER. 193 ionary. The best proof of this is, that she lived to ciurxEit see most of them realized. L_ She was quick to discern objects of real utility. She saw the importance of the new discovery of printing, and liberally patronized it, from the first moment it appeared. ^'^ She had none of the exclu- sive, local prejudices, too common with her coun- trymen. She drew talent from the most remote quarters to her dominions, by munificent rewards. She imported foreign artisans for her manufactures ; foreign engineers and officers for the discipline of her army ; and foreign scholars to imbue her martial subjects with more cultivated tastes. She consult- ed the useful, in all her subordinate regulations ; in her sumptuary laws, for instance, directed against the fashionable extravagances of dress, and the ruinous ostentation, so much affected by the Cas- tilians in their weddings and funerals. ^° Lastly, she showed the same perspicacity in the selection of her agents ; well knowing that the best measures become bad in incompetent hands. But, although the skilful selection of her agents Herunwea ' o o ried activity was an obvious cause of Isabella's success, yet an- other, even more important, is to be found in her 49 Mem. de la Acad, de Hist., las animas de los defuntos" &c. torn. vi. p. 49. " Pero los Catolicos Christianos que 50 The preamble of one of her creemos que hai otra vida despues pragmdticas against this lavish ex- desta, donde las animas esperan penditure at funerals, contains some folganza e vida perdurable, desta reflections vt'orth quoting for the habemos de curar e procurar de la evidence they afford of her practical ganar por obras merilorias, e no por good sense. " Nos deseando pro- cosas transitorias e vanas como son veer e remediar al tal gasto sin los lutes e gastosexcesivosy Mem. provecho, e considerando que esto dela Acad. deHist.,tom. vi.p. 318. no redunda en sufragio e alivio de VOL. III. 25