It is as a prose writer, however, that Quevedo has acquired fame out of his own country. And this not from his serious works; nor from his "picaresco," in which he relates the life of the great Tacaño, or captain of thieves, the type of a Spanish rogue. This tale, by its familiarity with vice, squalid penury, and vulgar roguery, becomes tiresome; nor is it to be compared in richness of humour to Mendoza's history of Lazarillo de los Tormes. The letters of the "Cavallero de Tenaza," or knight of the pincer, are very whimsical. They are in ridicule of avarice, a sin, which Quevedo declares in another work to be the most unnatural of all. They are addressed to a lady; and are lessons to teach how little can be given, and how much preserved, by a man on all occasions. This sort of dry humour turning on one idea amuses at first, but at last becomes wearisome. It is on his Visions however, his most original work, that his European reputation rests. Nothing can be more novel, singular and striking. They consist of various visions of the other world; where he sees the end of earthly vanities and the punishments that await crime. They are full of knowledge of human nature, vivacity, wit and daring imagination; they remind the reader of Lucian; and if they are less airy and fanciful, they are bolder and more sarcastic. They have the fault, it is true, of dwelling too exclusively on subjects of mean and vulgar interest--alguazils, attornies, ruffians, and all sorts of rogues of both sexes; among which, tailors figure preeminently. Now that tailors provide their own cloth, we have lost that intense notion of "cabbaging," which was so deeply impressed on the minds of our ancestors, when they only fashioned cloth sent to them. Tailors are with Quevedo the very _ne plus ultra_ of a thief. As lord Byron styles a pirate "a sea-solicitor," so Quevedo calls a robber "a tailor of the highways." Several of these visions were written while their author was comparatively young: (one, dedicated to the duke of Osuna, is dated 1610, when he was thirty years of age), and possess the glow and spirit of early life. Nothing can be more startling and vivid than the commencement of the "Vision of Calvary." The blast of the last trump is described, and then he goes on to say: "The sound enforced obedience from marble, and hearing from the dead. All the earth began to move, giving permission to the bones to seek one another. After a short interval, I beheld those who had been soldiers arise in wrath from their graves, believing themselves summoned to battle: the avaricious looked up with anxiety and alarm fearing an attack, while men of pleasure fancied that the horns sounded to invite them to the chase. Then I saw how many fled with disgust or terror from their old bodies, of which some wanted an arm, some an eye; and I laughed at the odd figures they cut, while I admired the contrivance of Providence, that all being confounded together, no mistake was made.