and all contemporaries, from Diego Hurtado de Mendoza downwards, swell the chorus of applause. The priest who sacked Don Quixote's library softened at sight of Barahona's book, which he calls by its popular title, the _Lágrimas de Angélica_ (Tears of Angelica):—"I should shed tears myself were such a book burned, for its author is one of the best poets, not merely in Spain, but in all the world." Cervantes was far from strong in criticism, and he proves it in this case. The _Angélica_, which purports to continue the story of _Orlando Furioso_—itself a continuation of the _Orlando Innamorato_—looks mean beside its great original. Yet, though Barahona fails in epic narrative, his lyrical poems, given in Espinosa's _Flores de poetas ilustres_, are full of grace and melody. The epic's fascination also seduced the Córdoban, JUAN RUFO GUTIÉRREZ. We know the date of neither his birth nor his death, but he must have lived long if his collection of anecdotes, entitled _Las seiscientas Apotegmas_, were really published in 1548. His _Austriada_, printed in 1584, takes Don Juan de Austria for its hero, and contains some good descriptive stanzas; but Rufo's invention finds no scope in dealing with contemporary matters, and what might have been a useful chronicle is distorted to a tedious poem. Great part of the _Austriada_ is but a rhymed version of Mendoza's _Guerra de Granada_, which Rufo must have seen in manuscript. When, leaving Ariosto in peace, he becomes himself, as in the verses at the end of the _Apotegmas_, he gives forth a natural old-world note, reminiscent of earlier models than Boscán and Garcilaso. Since Luis de Zapata (1523-? 1600) wrote an epic history of the Emperor, the _Carlos famoso_, he must have read it; and it is possible that Cervantes (who delighted in it) was familiar with its fifty cantos, its forty thousand lines. It is more than can be said of any later reader. Zapata wasted thirteen years upon his epic, and witnessed its failure; but he was undismayed, and lived to maltreat Horace—it sounds incredible—beyond all expectation. It is another instance of a mistaken calling. The writer knew his facts, and had a touch of the historic spirit. Yet he could not be content with prose and history.