Whether this plea availed him we know not;
but it is probable that the Holy Office dealt mildly with him; such
offenders, indeed, have never had much to fear from it. Had he
been accused of liberalism, or searching into the Scriptures,
instead of connection with the Gitanos, we should, doubtless, have
heard either of his execution or imprisonment for life in the cells
of the cathedral of Seville.
Such as are thus addicted to the Gitanos and their language, are
called, in Andalusia, Los del' Aficion, or those of the
predilection. These people have, during the last fifty years,
composed a spurious kind of Gypsy literature: we call it spurious
because it did not originate with the Gitanos, who are, moreover,
utterly unacquainted with it, and to whom it would be for the most
part unintelligible. It is somewhat difficult to conceive the
reason which induced these individuals to attempt such
compositions; the only probable one seems to have been a desire to
display to each other their skill in the language of their
predilection. It is right, however, to observe, that most of these
compositions, with respect to language, are highly absurd, the
greatest liberties being taken with the words picked up amongst the
Gitanos, of the true meaning of which the writers, in many
instances, seem to have been entirely ignorant.
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