MENDOZA, DIEGO HURTADO DE, an eminent scholar,
statesman, and general of Spain, and grandson of the elegant Santillana, was born at Granada in 1503, of a family which, after the blood-royal, was perhaps the most illustrious in the kingdom. Lope de Vega turns aside in his Arauco Domado to boast that the name of the Mendozas had been nobly great for three-and-twenty generations. As Diego had five brothers older than himself, he was originally destined for the church; and after receiving his elementary education at home, he proceeded to Salamanca, where he studied Latin, Greek, philosophy, and canon and civil law. But Mendoza early showed a decided predilection for politics and elegant literature, and resolved accordingly to abandon the idea of becoming a churchman. During his residence at the university he produced his Lazarillo de Tórmes, a work of real genius, which appeared in 1553, and which has been a favourite in most modern languages down to the present day. It is a sort of comic romance, written in that gusto picarese, or style of the rogues, so peculiar to Spain, and which, since the time of Mendoza, in the Gil Blas of Le Sage, and other works, has become famous throughout the world. Its object is to satirize all classes of society by assuming the character of a dexterous rogue, who, in his capacity of servant, gets behind the scenes and sees the actors in undress. It is written in a rich, bold, racy, Castilian style; and some of its sketches for freshness and spirit are unsurpassed in the whole range of prose works of fiction. The light, jovial, flexible audacity of the hero rendered him a great favourite with the grave Castilians. It nevertheless proved too much for the clergy, who issued an order for its expurgation, and solemnly denounced the anonymous author. Several continuations of the Lazarillo de Tórmes, by different writers, appeared afterwards, but none of them possessed much merit. Leaving the university, Mendoza joined the great Spanish armies in Italy; and while he entered with enthusiasm upon the duties of his new profession, he nevertheless found occasion, when the troops were unoccupied, to indulge his strong literary sympathies by listening to the lectures of the celebrated professors of Bologna, Padua, and Rome. The keen insight of Charles V. soon detected qualities in the young Spaniard which he resolved to turn to good account. Accordingly, in 1558 he appointed him his ambassador to Venice, afterwards made him military governor of Siena, and at a somewhat later date employed him to sustain the imperial interests at the famous Council of Trent. In 1547, while the council still sat, he was despatched by his royal master as a special plenipotentiary to Rome, to bring Pope Julius III. to a proper understanding. He boldly confronted and overawed his holiness in his own capital, and after rebuking him in open council, established himself in Italy, and governed that country for six years with great talent and firmness. But Charles, eager to conciliate the European powers before his abdication, began to alter his policy; and Mendoza, anxious for rest from his trying labours, returned to Spain in 1554 with a reputation for skill as an ambassador which afterwards passed into a proverb. The policy of Philip II. and the temper of Mendoza were little suited to one another, and the harsh tyranny of the emperor soon found means of ridding himself of the trusty ambassador. Having engaged in a passionate dispute with a courtier in the palace, the latter drew his dagger upon Mendoza, when the old warrior, who had lost little of the fire of his youth, though sixty-four years of age, wrested the weapon from the hands of his assailant, and flung it out of the balcony, throwing, as some add, the courtier after it. The spirited veteran could not be pardoned for such an affront to the royal dignity, and with his honours and gray hairs thick upon him, he was exiled from the court. The man, however, who in his college days had written Lazarillo, and who during the busiest negotiations had always found time to cultivate letters, was not likely to lament
very deeply his apparent disgrace, if it brought him into closer intimacy with his old travelling companions, the Amadis and the Celestina. He accordingly found solace during his exile in writing poetry, collecting manuscripts, and in composing his Guerra contra los Moriscos, or "War against the Moors" (1568-1570). From Mendoza's long residence in Venice and Rome, and from his early and close intimacy with Boscan, he could hardly have escaped from the influence of the Italian school of poetry. Yet his verses, both in spirit and in form, are often characterized by a strong Spanish element; and while the reader meets obvious traces of his careful study of Horace and Pindar in his "Epistle to Boscan" and in his "Hymn to Espinosa," those beautiful productions are nevertheless full of the genuine old Castilian spirit. Some of his letrillas have a charming gaiety about them, and a light and idle humour, which savours much more of the author of Lazarillo than of the dignified ambassador. His history is written with great power and energy, in a style closely modelled after Sallust and Tacitus, displaying by turns more exuberance than the one, and nearly all the severity of the other. This work is characterized by great impartiality,—not sparing even the author's own immediate relations who played an important part in these Moorish wars, and doing the hated enemies of his country so much generous justice that the book could not be published until 1610. Altogether it is perhaps the finest specimen of historical writing in the Spanish language. It was Mendoza's last work. In 1575 he obtained permission to return to Madrid, but died shortly after his arrival, at the advanced age of seventy-two.
Previous to his death Mendoza bequeathed the valuable classics and manuscripts he had collected with so much trouble in Italy, Greece, and Granada, to the Royal Library of the Escorial. The first complete edition of the Guerra de Granada is that of Montfort, with a Life of the author, Valencia, 1776, 4to. The only edition of his poems is that of Juan Diaz, Madrid, 1610, 4to. (See Life of Mendoza by N. Antonio in the Bibliotheca Nova; also Ticknor's Hist. of Spanish Lit., vol. i., 1849.)