CONDE, JOSE ANTONIO, one of the few Spanish orientalists who have attained a European reputation, was born at Paraleja, a small town of the province of Cuenca, about 1765. He was educated at the university of Alcali, where ho studied not only Greek, which In the days of Marti was sufficiently rare in Spain, but Hebrew and Arabic, the latter a language which ought to have peculiar attractions for Spanish scholar., but which had fallen into such neglect in the Peninsula that Casiri, a Syrian, had been engaged to catalogue the Arab o manuscripts in the Escurial. He was intended for the law, but having obtained in early life an appointment at the royal library of Madrid, devoted himself entirely to literature. His first separate publication appears to have been a translation of the Greek minor poets, Anacreon, Theocritus, Rion, and Moachus, in 1796, which was followed in 1799 by a rendering into Spanish of the Nubian geographer Al Edrisre 'Description of Spain,' acoompanied by the original Arabic, a very dry performance, in which the translation is not free from Inaccuracies. It appears however to have acquired for Conde a high reputation, and when he soon after began collecting materials for a history of the Moors in Spain, ho obtained the king's permission to have an Arabic manuscript bearing on his purpose transcribed for him at the public expense from the royal library of Pads. Ile was at the same time a member of the Spanish Academy, a member and librarian of the Academy of History, and one of a commission of three, consisting of Cienfuegos), Navarrete, and himself, to superintend • continuation of Sanchez's famous collection of early Castilian poetry. The French invasion, which had so blighting an influence on the career of almost every man in Spain, was peculiarly fatal to Conde, for he had the culpable weakness to become an Afrancesado,' or partisan of the invaders. He was appointed by Joseph Bonaparte to the office of chief librarian of the Madrid library, which be retained as long as the French held possession of the capital, and when they were driven from the Peninsula he followed. lie passed some years at Paris in arranging the materials be had collected for his history, and was finally permitted to return to Madrid. Gayangos assigns his return to 1819, but Ticknor, the American historian of Spanish literature, who visited Spain in 1818, mentions that "among the men of letters" whom he earliest knew at Madrid, Conde, a retired, gentle, modest scholar," who, "in the honest poverty to which he had been reduced," not unwillingly consented "to assist him in his Spanish studies, and in the collection of his library." " Every possible obstacle," says Gayangos, " was thrown in his way by the members of the government, and these marks of indifference to his pursuits and animosity towards his person on the part of hie countrymen, and the extreme poverty to which he was reduced by the refusal of govern ment to grant him any portion of the emoluments of his former office, seriously affected the health of Conde, who died in 1820, just as his friends were about to print his work by subscription." The first
volume only was printed with the advantago of the author's superin tendence, the remaining two of the history were put together from his manuscript's. Conde's library was sold after his death in London, and much has been said of late years respecting one of the volumes, the 'Cancionero de Beene.' This unique manuscript, a collection of ancient Castilian poetry, formed by a Jew named Baena, wee one of the most highly valued treasures of the Escurial library, and is described as such in Rodriguez de Castro'a 'thbiloteca Espanola.' At the time that Conde was one of the commission to continue the collection of Sanchez, this volume with others of value was authorised to be delivered to them for the purpose of editiog; when the French invasion broke up the project in 1808, It was still in Conde's hands, and after his death in 1820 it was sold in London by his heirs, purchsaid by Richard Ileber, and at lieber's solo again purchased by a French bookseller, who sold it to the royal library at Paris, whose property it still remains. It was lent from Pad", to the Spanish government, for the purposes of an edition which was pub. 'Mod at Madrid by Oche. in 1651, an i it is from the preface to that edition that these facts are taken. They furnish a striking argument in favour of the views of those who maintain the inexpediency of lending vslnable books from publio libraries.
The reputation of Conde now rests entirely on his Ilistory of the Dominion of the Arabs iu Spain,' of which translations have been published in several languages, and one in English by Mrs. Jonathan Foster, issued In 1854, occupies three volumes of Rolm's 'Standard Library.' Previous to the appearance of this work the only writer on the subject who supplied information from Arabia sources was Csalri, whose materiels were made nee of by Masdon in his elaborate' Ilistorin de Eapalta,' and by the Rev. T. 11. Horne In his sketch of tho career of he Mohammedans inserted in Murphy's ' Arabian Antiquities of ;pain.' Conde in his preface is very severe on Caeiri, whom ho censures 'or a "confusion respecting persona, places, and times, which can only be reoti8ed by those who read the originals which Casiri has impor reedy rendered." Precisely the same accusation has been 1 nought %safest Condo himself by Gayangos and Dozy, and too conclusively proved to be for a moment doubted. Yet oven after the appearance of Oftyangos's valuable translation from the Arabic of A1.51akhari's ' History of the Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain' (London, 1840-43, 2 vols. 4to), with its still more valuable notes, the work of Conde is one to which the student may often recur with profit, especially now that he is put on his guard against ite mistakes and shortcomings. With a great deficiency of critical power, Conde cannot be looked on is en historian, but be is a useful chronicler; and it should never be forgotten that he carried light into a portion of history where little Indeed had been done before him.