BIOGRAPHY. 383 



a great vacuity in the civil, political, and literary histories of 

 that time, it is earnestly to be desired that they may be one 

 day recovered. They were followed by a Treatise on Royal 

 Confirmations ; by the Political State of the West Indies ; the 

 Ecclesiastical and Political History of the Churches ; the His- 

 tory of the Supreme Council of the Indies ; the Paradise of the 

 New W orld, an Apologetic Commentary on the Natural and 

 choice History of the West Indies ; Deliberations of the Coun- 

 cil of the Indies ; the Patriarchal Dignity of the Indies, its 

 Institution, Exercise, Pre-eminences, and Corresponding 

 Prerogatives ; and the Grand Chancellor of the Indies. The 

 above works were published between the years 1653 '^^^ ^^5^9 

 with the exception of the former, which appeared so early as 

 1630, and of the latter, which is still preserved, in MS. in 

 the library of the Duke of Alba at Madrid. 



Our author's Life of Santo Torribio" furnished the prin- 

 cipal materials for nine other produ6tions which appeared on 

 the same subje6t, and was not equalled by any one of them in 

 the purity and perspicuity of the style and notices. In his 

 treatise entitled " Ancient and Modern Veils on the Faces of 

 the Women, their Conveniences and Mischiefs, or Illustration 

 of the Royal Pragmatics relative to the Disguise of Females,'* 

 he discourses learnedly on the veils of all the nations of the 

 world, and concludes by the following propositions : " That 

 the women should go abroad uncovered in Castille, is a law 

 which ought to be observed, without their being allowed to ap- 

 pear veiled or disguised. — That they should cover the face, by 

 throwing the mantle over it, without afFedlation, contrivance, 

 or artifice, is lawful and honest, and ought to be allowed so 

 long as there is not any law which ena6ts the contrary. That 



they 



