Juan Manuel's masterpiece is the _Conde Lucanor_ (also named the _Book of Patronio_ and the _Book of Examples_), in four parts, the first of which is divided into fifty-one chapters. Like the _Decamerone_, like the _Canterbury Tales_—but with greater directness—the _Conde Lucanor_ is the oriental apologue embellished in terms of the vernacular. The convention of the "moral lesson" is maintained, and each chapter of the First Part (the others are rather unfinished notes) ends with a declaration to the effect that "when Don Johan heard this example he found it good, ordered it to be set down in this book, and added these verses"—the verses being a concise summary of the prose. The _Conde Lucanor_ is the Spanish equivalent of the _Arabian Nights_, with Patronio in the part of Scheherazade, and Count Lucanor (as who should say Juan Manuel) as the Caliph. Boccaccio used the framework first in Italy, but Juan Manuel was before him by six years, for the _Conde Lucanor_ was written not later than 1342. The examples are taken from experience, and are told with extraordinary narrative skill. Simplicity of theme is matched by simplicity of expression. The story of father and son (_Enxemplo II._), of the Dean of Santiago and the Toledan Magician (_Enxemplo XI._), of Ferrant González and Nuño Laynez, a model of dramatic presentation (_Enxemplo XVI._), are perfect masterpieces in little. Juan Manuel is an innovator in Castilian prose, as is Juan Ruiz in Castilian verse. He lacks the merriment, the genial wit of the Archpriest; but he has the same gift of irony, with an added note of cutting sarcasm, and a more anxious research for the right word. He never forgets that he has been the Regent of Castile, that he has mingled with kings and queens, that he has cowed emirs and barons, and led his troopers at the charge; and it is well that he never unbends, since his unsmiling patrician humour gives each story a keener point. In mind as in blood he is the great Alfonso's kinsman, and the relation becomes evident in his treatment of the prose sentence. He inherited it with many another splendid tradition, and, while he preserves entire its stately clearness, he polishes to concision; he sets with conscience to the work, sharpening the edges of his instrument, exhibits its possibilities in the way of trenchancy, and puts it to subtler uses than heretofore. In his hands Castilian prose acquires a new ductility and finish, and his subjects are such that dramatists of genius have stooped to borrow from him. In him (_Enxemplo XLV._) is the germ of the _Taming of the Shrew_ (though it is scarcely credible that Shakespeare lifted it direct), and from him Calderón takes not merely the title—_Count Lucanor_—of a play, but the famous apologue in the first act of _Life is a Dream_, an adaptation to the stage of one of Juan Manuel's best instances (_Enxemplo XXXI._). Pilferings by Le Sage are things of course, and _Gil Blas_ benefits by its author's reading.