the story of Lewis de Castro, and Roderigo de Montalvo, coincides with the 41st tale of Massuccio, with La Precaution Inutile of Scarron, and the under-plot concerning Dinant, Cleremont, and Lamira, in Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy of the Little French Lawyer, (see above, vol. II. p. 394, &c.).

The frequent introduction of these episodes, is one of the circumstances in which this romance bears a resemblance to Gil Blas, a work of which Gusman Alfarache has been regarded as the model. Gusman, indeed, is a much greater knave than Gil Blas, and never attains his dignity-the pictures of manners have little resemblance, and in the Spanish work there are tiresome moral reflections on every incident, while the French author leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions from the situations in which the characters are placed. Still, however, both heroes begin by being dupes, and afterwards become knaves. The same pleasantry on the officers of justice runs through both, and the story of Scipio, like that of Saavedra, is too much chalked out after the adventures of his master.

Whether this romance has suggested any notions to the author of Gil Blas or not, it was at least the origin of a swarm of Spanish works concerning

the adventures of beggars, gypsies, and the lowest wretches. The Picara Justina, which bears the name of the licentiate Lopez de Ubeda as its author, but is generally attributed to Fra Anton Perez, seems to have been written to correspond with Gusman d'Alfarache. This romance, which was printed in 1605, commences, like Jonathan Wild, with an account of the ancestors of the heroine Justina, the daughter of an innkeeper, by whom she was early initiated into the art of imposing on passengers, and after his death continued, in various capacities, to dupe the inhabitants of Leon and the Castiles. The work is also interspersed with many moral and satirical reflections.

The Life of Paul the Sharper, by Quevedo, is of a similar description. It contains the history of a barber's son, who first serves a young student of quality at Alcala, which gives the author an opportunity of presenting us with some curious pictures of the manners and usages practised at that celebrated seminary of education. After Paul arrives at Madrid, the scenes described are in the lowest abyss of vice and misery. He first becomes member of a fraternity which existed by what has been called raising the wind. The chief incidents of the romance consist of stratagems to procure a crust of dry bread, and having eat it, to appear

with due decorum in public, by the art of fitting on a ruffle so as to suggest the idea of a shirt, and adjusting a cloak in such a manner as to make it be believed that there are clothes under it. Paul afterwards associates with a band of bravoes, and the consequences of an enterprise in which he engages oblige him to embark for the West Indies. An incident which occurs in this romance, while Paul is attending his young master at Alcala, seems to have suggested the story of the parasite, who eats the omelet of Gil Blas :-" L'ornement d'Oviedo, le flambeau de la philosophie, la huitieme merveille du monde."

Indeed, in most of the Spanish romances in this style of composition, we occasionally meet with stories of which the author of Gil Blas has availed himself. But of all the works in the Gusto Picaresco, Le Sage has been chiefly indebted to the Relaciones dela Vida del Escudero Marcos de Obregon;-not merely that the character of Gil Blas is formed on that of Obregon, but many of the incidents have been closely imitated. This work, which has been a subject of considerable curiosity in this country, was written towards the close of the 16th century by Vincent Espinel, born in 1551, and styling himself Capellan del Rey en el Hospital de la Ciudad de Ronda. It

was first printed in 1618; it is related in the person of the hero, and is divided into three parts or relaciones, which are again divided into chapters. The prologue contains a story which is nearly the same with that in the introduction to Gil Blas, concerning the two scholars and the soul of the licentiate Pedro Garcias. In the second chapter several anecdotes are related, as examples of composure of temper, one of which is of a gentleman who, on receiving a challenge to meet his enemy at six in the morning, said, that he never rose till mid-day for his amusement, and could not be expected to rise at six to have his throat cut,'—an answer which is made by one of Gil Blas' masters, Don Mathias de Sylva, (1. 3. c. 8). We are told in the following chapter, that Marcos entered into the service of Doctor Sagredo, a man of great arrogance and loquacity, and who was as much in the practice of blood-letting as the Sangrado of Le Sage. The chief occupation of Marcos was to attend the doctor's wife, Donna Mergellina, whom he introduced to a bar

'Decidle a vuestro amo, que digo yo, que para cosas que me importan de mucho gusto, no me suelo levantar hasta las doce del dia: que por què quiere que para matarme me levante tan de manana? y bolviendose del otro lado, se tornò a dormir.

ber lad of his acquaintance, and an intrigue is detailed, of which the incidents are precisely the same as those in the history of Diego the Garçon Barbier, in Gil Blas. Indeed Diego mentions, in the course of his relation, that the attendant of Mergellina was called Marcos Obregon. After leaving the service of the doctor and experiencing various adventures, Marcos arrives one night at a hermitage, where he recounts to the recluse the early events of his life. Having shown a taste for learning in his youth, he was sent by his father, under care of a muleteer, to Salamanca. On the way he meets with a parasite, who, by the most extravagant flattery, contrives to sup at his expence, and having satisfied his hunger, declares that there is a grandee in the neighbourhood who would give 200 ducats to see such an ornament of literature. Marcos having repaired to the house finds that the master is blind, and is jeeringly told by the parasite that the proprietor would give 200 ducats to see him or any one. In the course of the journey to Salamanca we have also a story which occurs in Gil Blas, of the amorous muleteer, who, in order to carry on an intrigue, more commodiously disperses the company in the Posada at Cacabelos. Instead of going to study at Salamanca, young Marcos enters into the service of the Count