Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/450

422 REGENCY OF XLMENES. PART the great trusts confided to him for the public. 32 The greater part of the funds which he left at his death was settled on the university of Alcala. ^^ He had, however, none of that pride, which would make him ashamed of his poor and humble relatives. He had, indeed, a confidence in his own powers, approaching to arrogance, which led him to undervalue the abilities of others, and to look on them as his instruments rather than his equals. But he had none of the vulgar pride founded on wealth or station. He frequently alluded to his lowly con- dition in early life, with great humility, thanking Heaven, with tears in his eyes, for its extraordinary goodness to him. He not only remembered, but did many acts of kindness to his early friends, of which more than one touching anecdote is related. Such traits of sensibility, gleaming through the natural austerity and sternness of a disposition like his, like light breaking through a dark cloud, affect us the more sensibly by contrast. He was irreproachable in his morals, and con- formed literally to all the rigid exactions of his severe order, in the court as faithfully as in the cloister. He was sober, abstemious, chaste. In portshim right, notices,as two of the prose can, the credit due to such cardinal's characterisiics, his free- posthumous benefactions, when dom from bigotry and despotism ! they set aside the dearest natural 32 Their connexion with so dis- ties for the mere indulgence of a tinguished a person, however, en- selfish vanity. Such motives can- abled most of them to form high not be imputed to Ximenes. He alHances; of which Oviedo gives had always conscientiously abstain- some account. Qujncnagenas, MS. ed from appropriating liis archi- episcopal revenues, as we have 83 "Die, and endow a college or a cat!" seen, to himself or his family. His The verse is somewhat stale, but dying bequest, tiierefore, was only expresses, better than a page of iu keeping with his whole life.