Didactic prose is practised by the official chronicler, JERÓNIMO DE ZURITA (1512-80), author of the _Anales de la Corona de Aragón_, six folios published between 1562 and 1580, and ending with the death of Fernando. Zurita is not a great literary artist, nor an historical portrait-painter. Men's actions interest him less than the progress of constitutional growth. His conception of history, to give an illustration from English literature, is nearer Freeman's than Froude's, and he was admirably placed by fortune. Simancas being thrown open to him, he was first among Spanish historians to use original documents, first to complete his authorities by study in foreign archives, first to perceive that travel is the complement of research. Science and Zurita's work gain by his determination to abandon the old plan of beginning with Noah. He lacks movement, sympathy, and picturesqueness; but he excels all predecessors in scheme, accuracy, architectonics—qualities which have made his supersession impossible. Whatever else be read, Zurita's _Anales_ must be read also. His contemporary, AMBROSIO DE MORALES (1513-91), nephew of Pérez de Oliva, was charged to continue Ocampo's chronicle. His nomination is dated 1580. His authoritative fragment, the result of ten years' labour, combines eloquent narrative with critical instinct in such wise as to suggest that, with better fortune, he might have matched Zurita. Hurtado de Mendoza as a poet belongs to Carlos Quinto's period. Even if he be not the author of _Lazarillo_, he approves himself a master of prose in his _Guerra de Granada_, first published at Lisbon by the editor of Figueroa's poems, Luis Tribaldos de Toledo, in 1627. Mendoza wrote his story of the Morisco rising (1568-71) in the Alpujarra and Ronda ranges, while in exile at Granada. On July 22, 1568 (if Fourquevaulx' testimony be exact), a quarrel arose between Mendoza and a young courtier, Diego de Leiva. The old soldier—he was sixty-four—disarmed Leiva, threw his dagger out of window, and, by some accounts, sent Leiva after it. This, passing in the royal palace at Madrid, was flat _lèse majesté_, to be expiated by Mendoza's exile. To this lucky accident we owe the _Guerra de Granada_, written in the neighbourhood of the war.