following. “If you have done something good in little, do it also in great, as the good will never die.”[36] “He who advises you to be reserved to your friends, wishes to betray you without witnesses.”[37] “Hazard not your wealth on a poor man’s advice.”[38] “He who has got a good seat should not leave it.”[39] “He who praises you for what you have not, wishes to take from you what you have.”[40] This last axiom is deduced from the well-known fable of the fox and the raven. It is curious to observe the resemblance between the unconscious artless simplicity with which Don Juan Manuel relates his fable, and the finely-studied simplicity with which the elegant La Fontaine tells the same story. Who would expect to find in an old Spanish book of the fourteenth century, the same knowledge of the world and mankind, as distinguished the refined age of Louis XIV.[41] This work appears to have been preserved without alteration, as it was originally written. It is only occasionally that the difference of the language in single words,[42] betrays the officious industry of some transcriber. In a short preface, the author gives a candid explanation of the object of this collection of tales. Don Juan Manuel was also the author of a Chronicle (_Chronica de España_); the Book of the Sages, (_Libro de los Sabios_); a Book of Chivalry, (_Libro del Caballero_); and several other works in prose of a similar nature.[43] It appears that these works are now lost, though they were preserved in manuscript in the sixteenth century. A collection of Don Juan Manuel’s poems also existed at that time, according to the express testimony of Argote y Molina, who published _El Conde Lucanor_ in the sixteenth century, and intended to publish those poems likewise. He calls them coplas; and they certainly were not alexandrines. After this testimony, it can scarcely be doubted that some of the romances and songs, which are attributed, in the _Cancionero general_, to a Don Juan Manuel, have this prince for their author.[44] But if such be the fact, then how many of the similar romances which are still preserved, may, considering the greater antiquity of their form, be yet more ancient! SATIRICAL POEM OF JUAN RUYZ, ARCH-PRIEST OF HITA. Don Juan Manuel had for his contemporary the author of an allegorical satire, written in Castilian alexandrines, or in a kind of verse which may be called doggrel. The result of the researches of the Spanish critics ascribes this very singular work to Juan Ruiz, arch-priest of Hita, in Castile.[45] This writer evidently possessed a lively imagination; he has personified with great drollery Lent, the Carnival, and Breakfast, under the titles of _Doña Quaresma_, _Don Carnal_, and _Don Almuerzo_; and these and other personages are placed in a very edifying connection with _Don Amor_. The object of the satire is thus apparent, but the execution is as unskilful as the language is rude. Only a part of the work has been preserved.[46]