Not so his prose satires. By these he is remembered and will always be remembered throughout the world. The longest of them, called “The History and Life of the Great Sharper, Paul of Segovia,” was first printed in 1627. It belongs to the style of fiction invented by Mendoza, in his “Lazarillo,” and has most of the characteristics of its class; showing, notwithstanding the evident haste and carelessness with which it was written, more talent and spirit than any of them, except its prototype. Like the rest, it sets forth the life of an adventurer, cowardly, insolent, and full of resources, who begins in the lowest and most infamous ranks of society, but, unlike most others of his class, never fairly rises above his original condition; for all his ingenuity, wit, and spirit only enable him to struggle up, as it were by accident, to some brilliant success, from which he is immediately precipitated by the discovery of his true character. Parts of it are very coarse. Once or twice it becomes--at least, according to the notions of the Romish Church--blasphemous. And almost always it is of the nature of a caricature, overrun with conceits, puns, and a reckless, fierce humor. But everywhere it teems with wit and the most cruel sarcasm against all orders and conditions of society. Some of its love adventures are excellent. Many of the disasters it records are extremely ludicrous. But there is nothing genial in it; and it is hardly possible to read even its scenes of frolic and riot at the University, or those among the gay rogues of the capital or the gayer vagabonds of a strolling company of actors, with any thing like real satisfaction. It is a satire too hard, coarse, and unrelenting to be amusing.[487]