Hernan was a sickly child, and probably would have died had not his good nurse, María de Estévan,
secured in his behalf Saint Peter, thenceforth his patron.3 With his mother’s milk he drank courage4 and intelligence, and he was schooled in the virtues and the vices of the day. In his youth he was headstrong, but chivalrous, and he revelled in his superiority over other boys. The brain-ferment, chronic throughout his life, set in at an early day. He was keenly sensitive to disgrace. As he developed somewhat of archness and duplicity, he was deemed best fitted for the profession of the law. At the age of fourteen, accordingly, with such preparation as the slender means of the father would allow, he was sent to Salamanca, whose university, though past the zenith of its fame, was still the leading seat of learning for conservative Spain. Two years of restraint and intellectual drudgery, during which time he lived with his father’s brother-in-law, Nuñez de Valera, sufficed to send him home surfeited with learning, to the great disappointment of his family.5 A frolicsome and somewhat turbulent disposition, more marked since his college career than previously, made his return all the more unwelcome.
Not that his studies, despite his aversion to them, had been wholly neglected; he could boast a smatter of Latin, which indeed proved of advantage afterward, giving him influence over many of those with whom he associated.
He had also acquired some knowledge of rhetoric, as is manifest in his letters and occasional verses.6
At present, however, his intellectual talents were employed only in scribbling rhymes in aid of amorous intrigues, which were now his chief pursuit.
Hence when arms possessed his fancy the parents did not repine, but were only too glad for him to enter service, as he seemed inclined, under