[Footnote 167: The fall and resurrection of the Gothic
monarchy are related by Mariana (tom. i. p. 238-260, 1. vi.
c. 19-26, 1 vii. c. 1, 2). That historian has infused into
his noble work (Historiae de Rebus Hispaniae, libri xxx.;
Hagae Comitum, 1733, in four volumes in folio, with the
Continuation of Miniana) the style and spirit of a Roman
classic; and, after the twelfth century, his knowledge and
judgment may be safely trusted. But the Jesuit is not exempt
fiom the prejudices of his order; he adopts and adorns, like
his rival Buchanan, the most absurd of the national legends;
he is too careless of criticism and chronology, and
supplies, from a lively fancy, the chasms of historical
evidence. These chasms are large and frequent; Roderic,
archbishop of Toledo, the father of the Spanish history,
lived five hundred years after the conquest of the Arabs;
and the more early accounts are comprised in some meagre
lines of the blind chronicles of Isidore of Badajoz
(Pacensis) and of Alphonso III. king of Leon, which I have
seen only in the annals of Pagi.]