DUBLIN:
JOHN F. FOWLER, 3 CROW STREET.

LONDON:
JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 and 75 PICCADILLY.

1870.





Calderon's Family Motto.

"POR LA FE MORIRE". --
FOR THE FAITH WELCOME DEATH.


THIS motto is taken from the engraved coat of arms prefixed to an
historical account of "the very noble and ancient house of Calderon de
la Barca"--a rather scarce work which I have never seen alluded to in
any account of the poet. The circumstances from which the motto was
assigned to the family are given with some minuteness at pp. 56 and 57
of the work referred to. It is enough to mention that the martyr who
first used the expression was Don Sancho Ortiz Calderon de la Barca, a
Commander of the Order of Santiago. He was in the service of the
renowned king, Don Alfonso the Wise, towards the close of the thirteenth
century, and having been taken prisoner by the Moors before Gibraltar,
he was offered his life on the usual conditions of apostasy. But he