priestcraft discernible throughout this great enterprise, and the
mistaken zeal and self-delusion of many of its most gallant and
generous champions. The romantic coloring seemed to belong to
the nature of the subject, and was in harmony with what I had seen
in my tour through the poetical and romantic regions in which the
events had taken place. With all these deductions the work, in all
its essential points, was faithful to historical fact and built upon
substantial documents. It was a great satisfaction to me,
therefore, after the doubts that had been expressed of the
authenticity of my chronicle, to find it repeatedly and largely used
by Don Miguel Lafuente Alcantara of Granada in his recent learned
and elaborate history of his native city, he having had ample
opportunity, in his varied and indefatigable researches, of judging
how far it accorded with documentary authority.

I have still more satisfaction in citing the following testimonial of
Mr. Prescott, whose researches for his admirable history of
Ferdinand and Isabella took him over the same ground I had
trodden. His testimonial is written in the liberal and courteous
spirit characteristic of him, but with a degree of eulogium which
would make me shrink from quoting it did I not feel the importance
of his voucher for the substantial accuracy of my work:

"Mr. Irving's late publication, the 'Chronicle of the Conquest of
Granada,' has superseded all further necessity for poetry and,
unfortunately for me, for history. He has fully availed himself of
all the picturesque and animating movement of this romantic era,
and the reader who will take the trouble to compare his chronicle
with the present more prosaic and literal narrative will see how
little he has been seduced from historic accuracy by the poetical