A certain directness of style is found in Gerónimo de Alcalá Yañez y Ribera's _Alonso, Mozo de muchos Amos_ (1625), in Alonso de Castillo Solórzano's _Garduña de Seville_ (the Seville Weasel, 1634), in the _Siglo Pitagórico_ (1644) of the Segovian Jew, Antonio Enríquez Gómez, and in the half-true, half-invented _Vida y Hechos de Estebanillo González_ (1646)—all picaresque tales, clever, amusing, and improper, on the approved pattern. But the pest of preciosity spread to fiction, is conspicuous in the _Español Gerardo_ of Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses, and steadily degenerates till it becomes arrant nonsense in the _Varios Efectos de Amor_ (1641) of Alonso de Alcalá y Herrera—five stories, in each of which one of the vowels is omitted. Alcalá, however, had neither talent nor influence. The Aragonese Jesuit, BALTASAR GRACIÁN (1601-58), had both, and his vogue is proved by numerous editions, by translations, by such references as that in the _Entretiens_ of Bouhours, who proclaims him "_le sublime_." Addison thrice mentions him with respect in the _Spectator_, and it is suggested that Rycaut's rendering of the _Criticón_ may have given Defoe the idea of Man Friday. In the present century Schopenhauer vowed that the _Criticón_ was "one of the best books in the world," and Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, taking his cue from Schopenhauer, has extolled Gracián with some vehemence. Gracián seems to have been indifferent to popularity, and his works, published somewhat against his will by his friend, Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa, were mostly issued under the name of Lorenzo Gracián. His first work was _El Héroe_ (1630), an ideal rendering of the Happy Warrior, as _El Discreto_ (1647) is the ideal of the Politic Courtier; more important than either is the _Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio_ (1642), a _conceptista_ Art of Rhetoric, of singular learning, subtlety, and catholic taste. The three parts of the _Criticón_, which appeared between 1650 and 1653, correspond to "the spring of childhood," "the summer of youth," and "the autumn of manhood." In this allegory of life the shipwrecked Critilo meets the wild man Andrenio, who finally learns Spanish and reveals his soul to Critilo, whom he accompanies to Spain, where he communes with both allegorical figures and real personages on all manner of philosophic questions. The general tone of the _Criticón_ goes far towards explaining Schopenhauer's admiration; for the Spaniard is no less a woman-hater, is no less bitter, sarcastic, denunciatory, and pessimistic than the German. Gracián, to use his own phrase, "flaunts his unhappiness as a trophy" in phrases whose laboured ingenuity begins by impressing, and ends by fatiguing, the reader.