Chapter Imoinda to Infant Endowed with Speech of I by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Inez of Cadiz, addressed in Childe Harold, i. (after stanza 84). Nothing known of her.

Inez (Donna), mother of don Juan. She trained her son according to prescribed rules with the strictest propriety, and designed to make him a model of all virtues. Her husband was don José, whom she worried to death by her prudery and want of sympathy. Donna Inez was a “blue-stocking,” learned in all the sciences, her favourite one being “the mathematical.” She knew every European language, “a little Latin and less Greek.” In a word, she was “perfect as perfect is,” according to the standard of Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Trimmer, and Hannah More, but had “a great opinion of her own good qualities.” Like Tennyson’s “Maud,” this paragon of women was, to those who did not look too narrowly, “faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.”—Byron: Don Juan, i. 10–30 (1819).

Inez de Castro, crowned six years after her death. The tale is this: Don Pedro, son of Alfonso IV. of Portugal, privately married, in 1345, the “beauty of Castile,” and Alfonso was so indignant that he commanded her to be put to death (1355). Two years afterwards, don Pedro succeeded to the crown, and in 1361 had the body of Inez exhumed and crowned.

Camoens, the Portuguese poet, has introduced this story in his Lusiad. A. Ferreira, another Portuguese poet, has a tragedy called Inez de Castro (1554); Lamotte produced a tragedy with the same title (1723); and Guiraud another in 1826. (See next art.)

Inez de Castro, the bride of prince Pedro of Portugal, to whom she was clandestinely married. The king Alfonso and his minister Gonzalez, not knowing of this marriage, arranged a marriage for the young prince with a Spanish princess, and when the prince refused his consent, Gonzalez ferreted out the cause, and compelled Inez to drink poison. He then put the young prince under arrest, but as he was being led away, the announcement came that Alfonso was dead and don Pedro was his successor. The tables were now turned, for Pedro was instantly released, and Gonzalez led to execution.—Rose Neil: Inez de Castro, or The Bride of Portugal. (See previous art.)

Infant Endowed with Speech. The imâm Abzenderoud excited the envy of his confraternity by his superior virtue and piety, so they suborned a woman to father a child upon him. The imâm prayed to Mahomet to reveal the truth, whereupon the new-born infant told in good Arabic who his father was, and Abzenderoud was acquitted with honour.—Gueulette: Chinese Tales (“Imâm Abzenderoud,” 1723).