The whole of it, however, is a mass of fiction, mingled
with a few disfigured truths, which give it an air of veracity. It
bears internal evidence of its falsity; the manners and customs of the
Moors being extravagantly misrepresented in it, and scenes depicted
totally incompatible with their habits and their faith, and which
never could have been recorded by a Mahometan writer.
I confess there seems to me something almost criminal, in the wilful
perversions of this work: great latitude is undoubtedly to be
allowed to romantic fiction, but there are limits which it must not
pass; and the names of the distinguished dead, which belong to
history, are no more to be calumniated than those of the illustrious
living. One would have thought, too, that the unfortunate Boabdil
had suffered enough for his justifiable hostility to the Spaniards, by
being stripped of his kingdom, without having his name thus wantonly
traduced, and rendered a by-word and a theme of infamy in his native
land, and in the very mansion of his fathers!
If the reader is sufficiently interested in these questions to
tolerate a little historical detail, the following facts, gleaned from
what appear to be authentic sources, and tracing the fortunes of the
Abencerrages, may serve to exculpate the unfortunate Boabdil from
the perfidious massacre of that illustrious line so shamelessly
charged to him. It will also serve to throw a proper light upon the
alleged accusation and imprisonment of his queen.
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