Note 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.]

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The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire —Fall In The East —Chapter 51