imperturbable remark: 'We were saying yesterday.' Mainly on this
uncertain basis is constructed the current legend that Luis de Leon
was a bloodless philosopher, incapable of resentment, and, indeed,
without a touch of human weakness in his aloof and lofty nature. His
works do not lend colour to this presentation of the man, nor do the
ascertainable details of his chequered career. The conception of Luis
de Leon as a meek spirit, an unresisting victim of malignant
persecution, is not the sole view tenable of a complex character.
However, the recorded facts may be trusted to speak for themselves.




II


What was Luis de Leon's full name? Was it Luis Ponce de Leon? So it
would appear from the summarized results of P. Mendez printed in the
_Revista Agustiniana_.[1] The point is not without interest, for Ponce
de Leon is one of the great historic names of Spain. If Luis de Leon
was entitled to use it, he appears not to have exercised his right,
for in the report of his first trial[2] he consistently employs some
such simple formula as:--'El maestro fray Luis de Leon... digo'.[3]
The omission of the name 'Ponce' during proceedings extending over
more than four years can scarcely be accidental. It may, however, have
been due to monastic humility,[4] or to simple prudence: a desire not
to provoke opponents who declared that Luis de Leon had Jewish blood
in his veins.[5] Whether this assertion, a serious one in
sixteenth-century Spain, had any foundation in fact is disputed. It
is apparently certain that Luis de Leon's great-grandfather married a