haps the most agreeable imitation of Don Quixote, is the History of Sylvio de Rosalva, by the German poet Wieland. In the beginning of last century, the taste for fairy tales had become as prevalent, particularly in France, as that for romances of chivalry had been in Spain a century before. This passion Wieland undertook to ridicule: Sylvio de Rosalva, the hero of his romance, is a young gentleman of the province of Andalusia, who, having read nothing but tales of fairies, believed at last in the existence of these chimerical beings. Accidentally finding in a wood the miniature of a beautiful woman, he supposes it to be the representation of a spell-bound princess, predestined to his arms by the fairy Radiante, under whose protection he conceives himself placed. Most of the adventures occur in the search of this visionary mistress, whom he imagines to have been transformed into a blue butterfly, by a malevolent fairy, because she had declined an alliance with her nephew, the Green Dwarf. He is at length received at the castle of Lirias, of which the possessor had a sister residing with him. Here he discovers that the miniature had been dropped by that lady, and that it had been done for her grandmother when at the age of sixteen. He is cured of his whims by this circumstance, and by the arguments

of his friends, especially of the young lady, of whom he becomes deeply enamoured, and whose beauty the disenchanted enthusiast at length prefers to the imaginary charms which he had so long pursued. The leading incident of the picture is taken from the story of Seyfel Molouk, in the Persian Tales, where a prince of Egypt falls in love with a portrait, which, after spending his youth in search of the original, he discovers to be a miniature of a daughter of the king of Chahbal, a princess who was contemporary with Solomon, and had herself been the mistress of that great. prophet. (See also Bahar-Danush, c. 35.) In other respects the work of Wieland is a complete imitation of Don Quixote. Pedrillo, the attendant of Sylvio, is a character much resembling Sancho: he has the same love of proverbs, and the same sententious loquacity. Nothing can be worse judged, than so close an imitation of a work of acknowledged merit; at every step we are reminded of the prototype, and where actual beauties might be otherwise remarked, we only remember the excellence of the original, and the inferiority of the imitation. Sometimes, however, the German author has almost rivalled that solemn absurdity of argument, which constitutes the chief entertainment in the dialogues of the knight of La

Mancha with his squire. "Pedrillo," said Don Sylvio, "I am greatly deceived, or we are now in the palace of the White Cat, who is a great princess, and a fairy at the same time. Now, if the sylphid with whom thou art acquainted belong to this palace, very probably the fairy thou sawest yesterday is the White Cat herself."

The story of Prince Biribinquer, however, is a part of the plan peculiar to Wieland. It is an episodical narrative, compiled from the most extravagant adventures of well-known fairy tales, and is related to Don Sylvio by one of his friends, for the purpose of restoring him to common sense, by too outrageous a demand on his credulity.

The resemblance between the incidents in Sylvio de Rosalva and the adventures of Don Quixote, has led me away from the chronological arrangement of the comic romances, to which I now

return.

About the period of the publication of Don Quixote, the Spaniards, whose works of fiction fifty years before were entirely occupied with Soldans of Babylon and Emperors of Trebizond, entertained themselves chiefly with the adventures of their swindlers and beggars. All works of the 16th century, which treat of the Spanish cha

racter and manners, particularly the Letters of Clenardus, represent, in the strongest colours, the indolence of the lower classes, which led them to prefer mendicity and pilfering to the exercise of any trade or profession; and the ridiculous pride of those hidalgos, who, while in want of provisions and every necessary of life at home, strutted with immense whiskers, long rapiers, and ruffles without a shirt, through the streets of Madrid or Toledo. The miserable inns, the rapacity of officers of justice, and ignorance of medical practitioners, also afforded ample scope for the satire contained in the romances of this period, most of which are perhaps a little overcharged, but, like every other class of fiction, only present a highlycoloured picture of the manners of the

age.

The work which first led the way to those compositions which were written in the Gusto Picaresco, as it has been called, was the Lazaro de Tormes, attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoça, who, as governor of Sienna and ambassador to the

Nic. Clenardi. Epist. lib. duo. These are letters addressed to his friends in Holland and Germany by a Dutch scholar, who visited Spain in the middle of the 16th century for the purpose of making researches in Arabian lite

rature.

Pope from Spain, became the head of the imperial party in Italy during the reign of Charles V. Stern, tyrannical, and unrelenting, he was the counter-part of the Duke of Alva in his political character; but as an amatory poet, he was the most tender and elegant versifier of his country, and every line of his sonnets breathes a sigh for: repose and domestic felicity. After his recall from Sienna he retired to Granada, where he wrote a history of the revolt of the Moors in that province, which, next to the work of Mariana, is the most valuable which has appeared in Spain: he also employed himself in collecting vast treasures of oriental MSS. which at his death he bequeathed to the king, and which still form the most precious part of the library of the Escurial.

Lazaro de Tormes was written by him in his youth, while studying at Salamanca, and was first printed in 1553. The hero of this work was the son of a miller, who dwelt on the banks of the Tormes. When eight years of age, he is presented by his mother as a guide to a blind beggar, whom he soon contrives to defraud of the money and provisions which were given to him by the charitable. After this he enters into the service. of an ecclesiastic, who kept his victuals locked up. in a chest, and a long chapter is occupied with