Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/373

ADMINISTRATION OF CASTILE. 229 tion, and to establish their own authority bj fo- chapteu menting the divisions of their powerful vassals. . ! — . On the contrary, she endeavoured to bind together the disjointed fragments of the state, to assign to each of its great divisions its Constitutional limits, and, by depressing the aristocracy to its proper level and elevating the commons, to consolidate the whole under the lawful supremacy of the crown. At least, such was the tendency of her administra- tion up to the present period of our history. These laudable objects were gradually achieved without fraud or violence, by a course of measures equally laudable ; and the various orders of the monarchy, brought into harmonious action with each other, were enabled to turn the forces, which had before been wasted in civil conflict, to the glorious ca- reer of discovery and conquest, which it was des- tined to run during the remainder of the century. much discernment ; and, as they vived the wreck of scholarship in throw light on some of the most Spain, and who with the erudi- recondite transactions of this reign, tion, which has frequently distin- are of inestimable service to the guished his countrymen, combined historian. The author of the vol- the liberal and enlarged opinions, ume is the late lamented secretary which would do honor to any coun- of the Academy, Don Diego Cle- try. mencin ; one of the few who sur-