*Many of the observations in this note have already appeared in
an explanatory article which at Mr. Murray's request, the author
furnished to the London Quarterly Review.


The idea of the work was suggested while I was occupied at Madrid
in writing the Life of Columbus. In searching for traces of his early
life I was led among the scenes of the war of Granada, he having
followed the Spanish sovereigns in some of their campaigns, and been
present at the surrender of the Moorish capital. I actually wove
some of these scenes into the biography, but found they occupied an
undue space, and stood out in romantic relief not in unison with the
general course of the narrative. My mind, however, had become so
excited by the stirring events and romantic achievements of this war
that I could not return with composure to the sober biography I had
in hand. The idea then occurred, as a means of allaying the
excitement, to throw off a rough draught of the history of this war,
to be revised and completed at future leisure. It appeared to me
that its true course and character had never been fully illustrated.
The world had received a strangely perverted idea of it through
Florian's romance of "Gonsalvo of Cordova," or through the legend,
equally fabulous, entitled "The Civil Wars of Granada," by Ginez
Perez de la Hita, the pretended work of an Arabian contemporary,
but in reality a Spanish fabrication. It had been woven over with
love-tales and scenes of sentimental gallantry totally opposite to
its real character; for it was, in truth, one of the sternest of those
iron conflicts sanctified by the title of "holy wars." In fact, the
genuine nature of the war placed it far above the need of any
amatory embellishments. It possessed sufficient interest in the
striking contrast presented by the combatants of Oriental and