These short tales were written at long intervals of time, as the internal evidence shows. In the forty-seventh chapter of _Don Quixote_ there is mention by name of _Rinconete y Cortadillo_, a picaresque story of extraordinary brilliancy and point included among the _Exemplary Novels_; and a companion piece is the _Coloquio de los Perros_, no less a masterpiece in little. Monipodio, master of a school for thieves; his pious jackal, Ganchuelo, who never steals on Friday; the tipsy Pipota, who reels as she lights her votive candle—these are triumphs in the art of portraiture. Not even Sancho Panza is wittier in reflection than the dog Berganza, who reviews his many masters in the light of humorous criticism. No less distinguished is the presentation, in _El Casamiento Engañoso_, of the picaroons Campuzano and Estefanía de Caicedo; and as an exercise in fantastic transcription of mania the _Licenciado Vidriera_ lags not behind _Don Quixote_. So striking is the resemblance that some have held the Licentiate for the first sketch of the Knight; but an attentive reading shows that he was not conceived till after _Don Quixote_ was in print. In 1814, Agustín García Arrieta included _La Tía fingida_ (The Mock Aunt) among Cervantes' novels, and, in a more complete form, it now finds place in all editions. Admirable as the story is, the circumstance of its late appearance throws doubt on its authenticity; yet who but Cervantes could have written it? Perhaps the surest sign of his success is afforded by the quality and number of his northern imitators. "_The land that cast out Philip and his God Grew gladly subject where Cervantes trod._" Despite assertions to the contrary, his _Gitanilla_ is no original conception, for the character of his gipsy, Preciosa, is developed from that of Tarsiana in the _Apolonio_; yet from Cervantes' rendering of her, which "_Gave the glad watchword of the gipsies' life, Where fear took hope and grief took joy to wife,_" and from his tale entitled _La Fuerza de la Sangre_, Middleton's _Spanish Gipsy_ derives. From Cervantes, too, Weber takes his opera _Preciosa_, and from Cervantes comes Hugo's _Esmeralda_. In _Las dos Doncellas_ Fletcher, who had already used _Don Quixote_ in the _Knight of the Burning Pestle_, finds the root of _Love's Pilgrimage_; from _El Casamiento Engañoso_ he takes his _Rule a Wife and Have a Wife_; and from _La Señora Cornelia_ he borrows his _Chances_. And, as Fielding had rejoiced to own his debt to Cervantes, so Sir Walter has confessed that "the _Novelas_ of that author had first inspired him with the ambition of excelling in fiction."