suddenness, vehemence, or volume of their attack, they must speedily
have been disillusioned. The mystic poet proved to be a formidable
fighting-man. Before very long it must have dawned upon the
Inquisitionary deputies at Valladolid that they had caught a Tartar.
Unversed in the ways of the world, Luis de Leon came of a legal stock,
and was thoroughly at home in a law-court. A master of dialectics, he
was always alert, always prompt to criticize the evidence, always
ready to deal with every point as it arose, always prepared to furnish
elaborate written or verbal explanations as to every detail concerning
which the tribunal could harbour a reasonable doubt. The official
secretaries of the Court--Celedon Gustin and the rest of them--must
have grown to dread Luis de Leon's continual demands for sheets of
paper on which to write his long, considered replies. It would be
idle to attempt to summarize the technical arguments advanced by each
side in support of conflicting views on doctrinal or exegetical
problems. In this place, it will suffice to advert to points which
help to illuminate the character of Luis de Leon, or to exemplify the
attitude of the court towards him.

At the outset, as already stated, there seems to have existed no
decided prejudice against Luis de Leon in the minds of his judges:
they apparently administered the existing system in a not illiberal
spirit. There are indications, however, that this position of relative
impartiality was not maintained. That the court became gradually
biased against the accused seems to follow from the small but eloquent
fact of its rejecting Luis de Leon's petition that his University
chair should not be declared vacant till the end of his trial.[72] It
cannot be argued that the judges were concerned for the efficiency of
the teaching in the University of Salamanca--a matter in which they
took no sort of interest. The decision of the court in Luis de Leon's