in the original language, and study it rightly, for it is not a book to be judged by a superficial perusal. But care must be taken that the intervention of many subordinate traits, which were intended to have only a transient national interest, does not produce an error in the estimate of the whole. It would be scarcely possible to arrange the other works of Cervantes according to a critical judgment of their importance; for the merits of some consist in the admirable finish of the whole, while others exhibit the impress of genius in the invention, or some other individual feature. A distinguished place must, however, be assigned to the _Novelas Exemplares_ (Moral or Instructive Tales.) They are unequal in merit as well as in character. Cervantes, doubtless, intended that they should be to the Spaniards nearly what the novels of Boccacio were to the Italians: some are mere anecdotes, some are romances in miniature, some are serious, some comic, and all are written in a light, smooth, conversational style. With regard to the practical knowledge which these novels are intended to convey to the reader, Cervantes has effected more than Boccacio; and at all events he extended the literature of his country by their publication, for no similar compositions had previously existed in the Spanish language. In them Cervantes has again proved himself the experienced judge of mankind, and has given, with admirable success, truly genuine and judicious representations of nature, in the various situations of real life. The reader must naturally feel inclined to pardon the want of plan which this little collection of novels occasionally exhibits, when he finds that the author through the medium of his characters relates and describes all that he had himself seen and experienced under similar circumstances, particularly during his abode in Italy and Africa. The history of the _Licenciado Vidriera_, (the Glass Licentiate) which is the fifth in the collection, is totally destitute of plan, and is related in simple prose like a common anecdote. But the novel of _La Gitanilla_, (the Gipsey Girl) is ingeniously conceived and poetically coloured; and the same may be said of some others. The story of _Rinconete y Cortadilla_, or the Lurker and the Cutter, as the names with reference to their etymology may be translated,[337] is a comic romance in miniature.