The conduct
of his work, no less than its diction, shows the cultivated
scholar, practised in the art of composition. Instead of the
naivete, engaging, but childlike, of the old military
chroniclers, Gomara handles his various topics with the shrewd
and piquant criticism of a man of the world; while his
descriptions are managed with a comprehensive brevity that forms
the opposite to the longwinded and rambling paragraphs of the
monkish annalist. These literary merits, combined with the
knowledge of the writer's opportunities for information, secured
his productions from the oblivion which too often awaits the
unpublished manuscript; and he had the satisfaction to see them
pass into more than one edition in his own day. Yet they do not
bear the highest stamp of authenticity. The author too readily
admits accounts into his pages which are not supported by
contemporary testimony. This he does, not from credulity, for
his mind rather leans in an opposite direction, but from a want,
apparently, of the true spirit of historic conscientiousness.
The imputation of carelessness in his statements - to use a
temperate phrase - was brought against Gomara in his own day; and
Garcilasso tells us, that, when called to account by some of the
Peruvian cavaliers for misstatements which bore hard on
themselves, the historian made but an awkward explanation. This
is a great blemish on his productions, and renders them of far
less value to the modern compiler, who seeks for the well of
truth undefiled, than many an humbler but less unscrupulous
chronicle.
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