CASTILE (in Spanish, Castillo), an ancient kingdom of Spain occupying the central districts of the peninsula. For its history as a separate kingdom see the article SPAIN. The name Castile is derived from the existence of numerous forts (castillos) erected on the frontiers to afford protection from enemies. The northern part of the old kingdom, which was first rescued from the Moors, is called Castilla la Vieja, or Old Castile ; the southern, more recently acquired, is called Castilla la Nueva, or New Castile. The length of Castile from north to south is about 300 miles; the breadth, about 160 miles; and the total area about 45,000 square miles, or nearly one-fourth that of Spain.
Old Castile is bordered on the N. by the Bay of Biscay, on the E. and N.E. by Biscay, Alava, Navarre, and Aragon, on the S. by New Castile, and on the W. by Leon and Asturias. It is divided into the pro vinces of Burgos, Logrofio, Santander, Soria, Segovia, Avila, Palencia, Valladolid, and has an area of 25,409 square miles, and a population estimated in 1870 at 1,689,864 inhabitants. The country consists of vast plains, which form, between the Cantabrian chain in the north and the chain of Sierras stretching south-west from Aragon to Estremadura, a great table-land, of a height between 2500 and 4000 feet above the sea. The principal rivers are the Douro and the Ebro. The plains are barren and dry, with scarcely a tree, meadow, or spring of water ; but the hills bordering the mountain ranges are well clothed with oak-forests. The climate is healthy, but subject to great extremes of cold and heat ; frosts in the higher regions may last three months at a time. The soil is productive, but poorly cultivated ; the harvests of wheat, however, are abundant. Wine and oil of inferior quality, and madder, are produced in considerable quantity, but fruits are scarce except at Bureba. The export trade is chiefly in wool, cattle, sheep, and wheat. The bad state of the roads (which are often impassable for mules), the insufficiency of railway communication, and the neglected condition of the Port of Santander, are great obstacles to commerce.
New Castile is bounded on the N. by Old Castile, on the E. by Aragon and Valencia, on the S. by La Mancha, on the W. by Estremadura. It forms the southern portion of the great central table-land of Spain, and comprises the pro vinces of Madrid, Toledo, Guadalajara, and Cuenca. The total area is 20,1 78 square miles, inhabited by a population estimated in 1870 at 1,277,123. The principal mountain ranges are the Sierra Guadarama in the north, and the Sierra Morena in the south. The chief rivers are the Tagus, Guadiana, Guadalquiver, Segura, and Xucar. The climate is more rigorous than that of Old Castile, and the mean temperature, on account of the elevation of surface, is not more than 59 ; but the heat in summer is extreme in the valleys. The rainfall is not more then 10 inches in a year ; the winds are dry and violent. The whole country presents the aspect of a barren dusty steppe, with patches of olive-trees here and there, and wheat, pea, and saffron fields. During the rainy season the vegetation is very luxuriant ; but agriculture is in a backward state ; the soil is fertile, but the rivers are not used for its irrigation. The total quantity of wheat raised is barely sufficient for the wants of the population. Hemp and flax and olive- trees are cultivated. Timber and fire-wood are becoming dearer, as the country is very little wooded. Honey is gathered in considerable quantities ; and sheep, oxen, and mules are reared in great numbers. Iron, salt, and quick silver are worked ; the mineral resources are good, but ill developed. The manufactures are chiefly of woollen goods, plain and figured velvets, silks, satins, calicoes, stockings, earthenware, and cutlery.
The inhabitants of both Old and New Castile are a loyal and manly race, preserving the primitive simplicity and pure Spanish, as well as the pride, of their forefathers. They are uneducated and inclined to bigotry, but naturally shrewd and intelligent. The tillage of the land and the pasturing of sheep are their chief employments.
CASTILLEJO, Christobal de (1494-1556), was born, according to Moratin, in Ciudad-Rodrigo. Attached at an early age to the household of Ferdinand of Austria, after wards king of Bohemia and Hungary, and eventually em peror, Castillejo rose in the prince s service to the post of secretary, taking orders on the departure of his master from Spain, in which country he remained some time. A letter written during this period (1523) by Martin de Salinas to the treasurer Salamanca, in reply to one asking him to provide the treasurer with a secretary, bears flattering wit ness to the ability and temper of Castillejo, who is warmly recommended to the vacancy. It is not known whether he obtained this post. Certain it is, however, that he soon afterwards folowed Ferdinand, and resumed his secretary ship, with but little profit, if we may judge from many passages in his verse, in which he deplores his poverty and the forlorn position unaided merit held at court. He was several times in Venice, where certain of his opuscules were printed for smuggling into Spain, Castillejo, like Terres Naharro, whose comedies and satires were also pub lished in Italy, being on the Index of the Inquisition, on account of the strong anti -clerical bias of his satirical works. He died in a monastery near Vienna, two years before Fer dinand s recognition as emperor.
are worthy of note, not only on account of their intrinsic merit, but also as being the last manifestation of import ance of the older Spanish School of poetry against the younger section under the leadership of Garcilaso de la Vega. That fine melodist and brilliant rhetorician, the Ronsard of Spain, seconded by Boscan and Hurtado de Mendoza, had introduced into his own land the rhythms and cadences employed in Italy ; through him the sonnet, the canzone, the octaves of the comic epics, and even the terza rima of the comedy itself had been transplanted into Spanish soil ; and he and his followers had created a vocabulary of picked and exquisite terms which, passing through the hands of the magniloquent Herrera, was to end in the monstrous dialect of Gongora and his disciples. Against this revolution Castillejo set his face, fighting gallantly and unavailingly in defence of the antique metrical forms and structures. The use of these he never abandoned, save on one or two occasions when, for purposes of parody, he produced sonnets and octaves. In the poetry of Castillejo, which is written chiefly in " quintillas " and " coplas de pie" quebrado," are all the qualities that make the older verse of Spain such pleasant reading the grace ful simplicity, the artless elegance, the fluency and spontaneity (which sometimes, however, degenerates into garrulity), the keen and homely mother wit, often gross but seldom offensive or cruel. He has, however, other quali ties which are peculiar to himself, and which give him a place apart even among the school that may be said to end in him ; his society verses are bright with a pleasant gossipy amiability ; his satires are quick with a certain cynical sprightliness that makes them still amusing and attractive ; while one at least of his poems, the " Dialogue between Himself and his Pen," overflows with a humorous tanderness that is extremely effective. Writing on anything and everything " On a Green and Yellow Costume," " On the Wood Guaiacum," " On a Friend s Horse called Tristram," he of course produced a cloud of rhymes that are intolerable and to be avoided. Some of his " Villancicos," " Letras," and " Motes," however, are charming in despite
of years ; a not infrequent note in them reminding the