Unfortunately the ecclesiastical and political despotism of this period left no free scope for the exercise of the mental powers of those Spaniards who were desirous of constructing a national prose style on the ancient models. Neither the didactic nor the historical styles could be freely developed; and for the formation of the oratorical style, circumstances were, if possible, still more unfavourable. Impeded by such obstacles, and permitted only to copy in the strictest sense the rhetorical forms of the ancients, without their energy and solidity of thought, and their force of expression, the Spanish prose writers certainly could not be expected to produce works worthy to be ranked on a level with the classic examples they would have wished to emulate; but their efforts to open the career of genuine eloquence to their national literature, deserves, notwithstanding, to be honourably recorded. 1. DIDACTIC PROSE is, in the Spanish language, indebted for its first formation to Fernan Perez de Oliva of Cordova. At the commencement of the sixteenth century this learned man travelled through Italy and France, and during three years which he spent in Paris delivered public lectures on philosophy and ancient literature. On his return to Spain he settled at Salamanca, where he became professor (_cathedratico_) of theology, and delivered lectures on the Aristotelian philosophy. He died in 1533, before he had completed his thirty-sixth year.[307] His philosophic and theological studies, and his intimacy with Grecian and Roman literature, did not withhold him from the cultivation of his native language; and he even endeavoured, by his translations which have already been mentioned,[308] to naturalize the Greek tragedy in Spain. He also wrote several poems, which in honour of his memory, are still preserved. But Perez de Oliva was no poet; and to judge from his translations he appears to have had scarcely any true poetic feeling, though he possessed a correct and delicate taste for the rhetorical beauty of prose. His most celebrated work is his Dialogue on the Dignity of Man (_Dialogo de la Dignidad del Hombre_) in the manner of Cicero.[309] It would be vain to seek in this didactic dialogue for ideas which present the merit of novelty in the present age; and it can by no means be regarded as a model of dialogue style any more than the similar works of Cicero. But it was the first specimen in Spanish literature, of clear and connected discussion, maintained in correct dignified and elegant language. The colloquial form serves to connect, though somewhat loosely, the two portions into which the work is divided. Two philosophic friends meet, and their conversation turns on solitude: they endeavour to explain the causes which induce man to seek retirement, and which render him dissatisfied with the society of his fellow creatures. One of the friends inveighs against human society, while the other extols its advantages. In the